General Fandom Meta

margarks in fandomvoice - Slash and the World at Large - But the thing that bothers me the most. The thing that every journalist and average joe thinks is that slash has some kind of corner on the smut market. That if you write het, it’s innocent fun. But, once you stray into slash territory you’re a purveyor of porn. And that it's this genre, in and of itself, that makes fan fiction immoral.

annamilton - The radical transgression is pastede on, yay! (HBP spoilers at the bottom) - You (note: editorial "you", not directed at anyone) want to write m/m? Great! Go for it. Knock yourself out. [...] But I wish some people would stop pretending that posting m/m fanfic on the Internet is somehow a great act of social trangression. I mean, how exactly is straight women lusting after men, writing a genre defined by an obsession with men (and often by the marginalisation, if not outright demonisation, of female characters to boot), transgressive anything?

xyellowroset - Attempting a Vampire Meta Post . . . - From whence do we get this idea of a 'fanged menace,' what led Vlad to become such a durable staple of our collective unconscious, is there a grain of truth somewhere? [Discussion of various vamp fandoms]

imadra_blue - Why Shipping Is Mostly Interpretation aka STFU About Your Close-Minded Views - The type of attitudes I have something to say about are basically from the ones that you might find calling themselves "canon nazis" or "canon whores." [...] Most of canon is interpretation, with the exception of the hard cold facts like Harry Potter has green eyes [...] or Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Jedi. So, really, other than these basic facts, all you're doing is canon nazi'ing your own interpretation. Which is all well and good, because interpretation is much like sex -- some people do it better than others. But at the end of the day, everyone has their individual kinks and turn-ons, so some people just don't do it for you.

permetaform - VVC!!! and thinkyness - frequently it seems to me that the more heated pairing debates revolve (at it's core) a great deal around the idea of what a "Relationship" should look like. Specifically, a non-platonic relationship; and isn't that a can of worms 'cause then the debate boils down to an argument between two people with fundamentally different concepts of a relationship and how that relates to the also heated question of what is 'love'.

londonkds - That class thing - There's been quite a bit of discussion on nostalgia_lj's journal lately about class issues in fandom and fanfic. Moving from the general to the specific, I suspect that some of the neglect of the subject in fandom is because most canons don't deal with the issue particularly effectively. Thinking about it, I can't help but feel that this is somewhere where British series do better than American.

isiscolo - thoughts on visual fanwork in two very different fandoms - I figure with everyone away at Vividcon I can post about my shameful little secret, which is: I don't really like (most) vids. I have been thinking about this a lot lately, because SGA has a lot of vidders and a lot of vids, and also because it has led me into some tangential thoughts about fanart and other visual derivatives.

netweight - She wanks on. And on. And on. - It’s gotten to the point where we’re excusing ourselves, tiptoeing around timidly, because we want good fic with characters we’re able to recognize instead of crack claiming fanon or human AU fic. And it’s not that I think all fanon is Satan’s spawn or that I think one hasn’t the right to write as many cracked AU’s hit each one’s personal kinks. But when someone's trying to pass what is admittedly not so good fanfiction for the real thing “omg this is so good it will make you cry blood tears!!” I think we’re entitled to say “wait a minute, WTF??” Yes, you have every right to write shitty fic. And I have every right to say “hey, that’s shitty fic!”

glossing - [meta] paraliterature, meta, and 'Hawks and Hands' - Delany argues that SF, much like fandom (they overlap so much, though there are significant distinctions to be made), can be "an insular field in which all these mummified half-ideas, ill understood -- about origins, definitions, mastery, and craft -- were in circulation as though they still had life and value" (258). What he ignores, though, at least I think this through in the fannish context, is that clearly, such ideas still have value. After all, they're still being used. I assume the same must be true for type crit -- these ideas have life and value. Comparison per se is never *not* going to be useful, but ossifying it into the dominant perspective is not.

bethbethbeth - Beyond Subtext: When Obeservation Becomes Expectation - As I was watching Stargate: Atlantis tonight, an odd thing happened: not only did I see quite a number of scenes in which two characters could easily have ended up in 'the clinch' [...] but I was actually disappointed when they *didn't* end up at least touching each other - and not in that 'oh, wouldn't it have been cool if...?' sort of way. No, I think I've actually come to expect that certain set-ups are always going to lead to a physical (usually sexual) resolution. For this, I blame fanfiction. [minor spoilers for this week's SGA]

valis2 - Strange thoughts about fic/art schizm - So I've noticed (or at least I think I've noticed) that there is kind of a schizm between fanfiction writers and fanartists. No, I don't mean that there is some sort of civil war and the fanartists are launching erasers at the fanfiction authors or anything of the sort. I just mean that I've noticed that the writers tend to stick together, and the fanartists tend to stick together

lostakasha - Fandom Made Me Gay - With so many conversations about the impact of fandom and fic on our real lives, and vice versa, I couldn’t help but jump in the fray with my own heart-rending, Lifetime Movie of The Century Tell-All journal entry. Hang on, chickens -- it’s gonna be a bumpy night. That's right, fandom made me gay.

Fandom-Specific Meta

ataniell93 - Part the Second (Really Truly): The A-Historicity of the Potterverse. - The Potterverse, or at least the Wizarding World of the Potterverse, is not the 20th century, even though the stories in the books take place in the 1990s and the backstory begins in WWII. It’s not the 18th century, either, though there is a bifurcation point in the late 17th century at which the Wizarding World withdrew from the Muggle world [...] It’s not the 21st century, either. It’s a funhouse mirror of the entire modern era, from the 16th-17th century to the present day [HP]

ataniell93 - Part the Third: Yes, Ginevra, There Is Wizarding Psychology. (We Just Don’t Call It That.) - Wizards know something about psychology. We just don’t know what it is that they know. Jo may not be very good at conveying it to us in a believable fashion, and it clearly isn’t being used consistently, but Legilimency, whatever it was Pomfrey did to Ginny, Cheering Charms, the existence of the Pensieve, Obliviation and memory redaction all are evidence that they know something we don’t know. [HP]

ataniell93 - Part the Fourth: Sexualities of the Wizarding World - Canonically, we’re not going to see queer relationships. From the perspective of authorial intent, perhaps we’re not supposed to. [...] However, the canonical facts of her universe are such that I’d speculate the WW is likely a pretty good place to be queer and/or transgendered. [HP]

cordelia_v in hp_fictalk - A Fanon Kink - I’ve got a guilty secret, something that I feel ashamed to enjoy. But occasionally, when my eyes are bleary from reading crackfic, I’m in the mood for it. I know where I can find this sort of stuff, lurking in the back alleys of fandom archives, very late at night. [...] But I doubt that many of them will sympathize with this particular kink. Nope, they’re not going to respect me in the morning, after I confess to this: sometimes, I have a sick, horrified fascination with SS/HP stories that feature a really Feminized! Harry. [HP]

dangermousie - Why I am not a shipper - I am not a BSG shipper. At least not a Kara/Lee shipper (the jury is out on Helo/Boomer). I love the show, enjoy each episode (yes, even Litmus and the Farm), and find the characters interesting, but sometime between the end of first season and now, I've lost my shippy tendencies when it comes to BSG. [BSG]


Reading/Writing/Creating and

theohara - I'm Going To Get So Flamed For This - So, after I mentioned in an earlier entry that I screen fanfic by summaries, someone wrote in to ask what the criteria was. Here are some examples of summaries that scare me away

celindineb - Thinking about canon style - What I'm finding to be food for thought is the attitude that not only the facts are expected by readers to be accurate or at least reasonable [...] but the style of writing is often expected to adhere to the canonical model as well.

evadne_ - First time vs. established relationship stories in fanfiction - So, I've been thinking about established non-canon relationship stories in fanfiction (example; a SG-1 story where Jack and Teal'c have been smooching in a closet at the SGC once a week for three years, yes I'm just making that up.), and not only why they don't really work for me, but why they clearly do work for other people.

othercat - Feedback Pseudo Essay... - The point is, if you don't think you're getting *enough* feedback, and you've done all the things you could to get your fic out there, you should maybe think in terms of quality, versus quantity. In other words, a rating system. (Like the one below, which I made up on the spot during break at work.)

bellatemple - ... and that's how you get to Llama School! (on feedback) - Now, were I to actively feedback every single thing I've read, I'd never have any time for anything else. But my reasonings for feedbacking or not, which really should be limited more to "I don't know what to say other than 'yay, good!'" or "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't bother flaming the poor schmuck", were along the lines of "That author has like, seventy people on their Flist. They don't need me" and "Newish author requires support for goodness! Feedback now!". Somewhere along the lines, my inner support of new/unknown authors has turned into some kind of bizarre grading system where I decide whether or not the author is worthy of my time feedbacking by whether or not that author has likely received other feedback.

Polls/Questions

scatteredlogic - Music, love scenes and smut... - Are there certain songs that you find more conducive to writing love scenes and/or smut than others?

torn_eledhwen - So what makes you write fanfic? - So my question to you, if you've read this far through the ramblings, is what makes you write in a particular fandom? Or why don't you write in others?

minisinoo - NC-17 poll wrap-up - It's been about a week since that poll on our expectations about NC-17 ratings, and I suspect everyone's voted who wants to. So here's a brief summary of the results.

colouredlights - IN WHICH I TALK ABOUT POV. - Which POV is your favorite to read? Why does that POV appeal to you more than others? Do you tend to write in the same POV you like to read, or do you write in another? Which POV is your least favorite? Why?