Fandom Meta

marenfic - "Wank" is so overused, it's lost its meaning. . . I'm unsure why every discussion in fandom has to devolve into childishness, or why every time two or more people disagree about something or have differing opinions the attempts at discussion get labeled wank.

violetsmiles - let's talk about wank, baby. You – yes, YOU – can post meta and not have it be wanky. No, really. YOU can. It’s not difficult. It doesn’t take a magic wand or a group of minions to scare away all dissenters. You can have people disagree with you and still keep the discussion an actual discussion and not a wanktastic kerfluffle. In fact, it’s not even difficult.

mona1347 - Here a wank, there a wank, everywhere a wank wank Do you guys think that "They" might be starting to market, just a tiny, hesitant bit, to the slash contingent? . . . I'm not saying that it's suddenly gay-a-palooza up in here and all the tv execs are down but I'm asking if you think there is knowledge of the popularity of slash and thus the attempt to stick a few blatantly subtexual references to draw these strange fans called "slashers" in.

ptyx - A metaphor on fandom and its creations "In the middle of the page there is a word, or a few words, and around this kernel are drawn some concentric text-circles. (…) The circles do not only comment upon the kernel, but also comment each other”. They are slowly forming around the centre like the rings of a tree trunk and are written not only by different authors but also very often in different languages"

penknife - On the definition of "slash" I know that "slash" used to mean only non-canon pairings (partly because at first, there weren't any canon same-sex pairings), but to me that's not a very useful definition at this point. To the extent that I care about het/slash/gen genre labels, what I want to know is whether there is romance or sex and the gender of the parties involved, not whether the pairing or the sexuality of the characters involved is established in canon. I don't particularly care; why would I?

obsessedmuch - Why is it... When you think thinky thoughts and it spawns a bunch of discussions all over the place, only those opinions which agree with your thoughts are valid and all those who might perhaps approach it from the other side are not as valid?



twinkledru - *deep breath* Okay, so. A few days ago, I asked for explanations as to why f/f was so relatively unpopular in most of fandom as compared to m/m. Explanations that did not involve 'all the women in Fandom X are boring' or, later, 'because straight girls like the cock and so two cocks are better than one, and gay girls like vaginas and so two vaginas are better than one'. .. . First of all, something that it's become increasingly clear I should've said from the beginning: I don't think it's as simple as one single reason for pretty much any of us. Even those of us who say "I'm just here for the porn", hey, there's still a reason why they prefer Porn X to Porn Y (or, if you will, Porn XX/XX to Porn YX/YX), even if both of them are equally well-written, right? I'm sure that for most of us, there's a combination of some kind at work here.

winterlive - Thoughts which involve thinking. I have this theory that women find slash appealing not because of the misogyny in the western culture at large, but because of the misandry.

kyuuketsukirui - Female characters Okay, so it seems all fandom is talking about now is women and female characters and yadayada. And now I've seen it come down to basically, "if you say there are no interesting female characters in your fandom(s), that says more about you than the fandom." I'm sorry, but what? Is there a law now that just because a character happens to have the same bits as I do, I have to find them interesting? Do I also have to find all white characters interesting? Those with hazel eyes? Brown hair? Fat characters?

kita0610 - Brief thoughts from a bisexual, female, m/m slash writer -There is misogyny in fandom. Much like there is misogyny all over the rest of the planet. It sucks here, same as it sucks anywhere else.// -Writing solely about men does not make a writer misogynyst.// -Writing soley about women does not make a writer a feminist.

musesfool - i've got to leave before i start to stay You know, maybe it's me, and maybe it's wanktastic (the two are not mutually exclusive) but I find it excruciatingly annoying that every time the discussions of female characters and femslash (two separate discussions, mind) come up, they're reduced to "Oh people are saying m/m slash is misogynistic and it's not! Pfft."

violetsmiles - and I have more to say... why i write more m/m than f/f Hell, even after all the lies that have been told, all the hurt inflicted, all the betrayals, both big and small, they still can’t walk away. They can’t forget one another. // That, my lovely f-list, is what draws me to a pairing. It’s that kind of intensity that gets my blood flowing, my muse panting, and my arms flailing. Sure, there are other pairings I like, ones that don’t fit the mold, but they are few and far between.

Specific Fandom Meta

( Cut for possible Spoilers for the Fandoms: HP )

On Reading and Writing

isiscolo - mo beta It seems to me that the word "beta" has lately been undergoing a semantic shift. . . . So don't think of "beta" = copyeditor. Think of "beta readers" as "beta testers," a friendly but critical audience who will put your story through its paces and let you know exactly where it fails - and what it does right.

ratcreature - HP archives Sometimes I really yearn for the more or less centralized fandom infrastructure like I was used to in The Sentinel. . . . Personally I think that kind of thing, where you have half a dozen or more archives for a single pairing, is really inconvenient. What is wrong with having larger archives with good search functions? I get that huge archives in fandoms like HP are a lot of work, and that hosting costs are probably a factor too, but that's why archives can be group managed, no?

elysian_stars - The problem with fanart Fanart. Fun to create, fun to look at. But not so fun when it's used without credit or permission from the original artist. When the artist speaks English then there's absolutely no excuse for this, but what about when the artist is Japanese? How are you supposed to ask for permission then?

Links, Polls, Other

ethrosdemon - [fandom documentary] I’m making a documentary about fandom. Would you be willing to be in it? Do you plan to attend any conventions in the next year where I could talk to you? Would you be willing to have your fic/fanart/meta/face in the film?

sophia_helix - testing a theory So, I should say up-front that I'm actually kinda bored with the idea that we have to go through the "omg is slash misogynist???" thing again, even though I know new people are involved, it's a new debate, yadda yadda. But I'm frustrated with the fact that not only does everyone have a different reason for "why people slash," very few people involved in the debate seem to allow for the fact that maybe, instead of X causing Y, the whole freakin' alphabet causes Y. I also think that different people have different reasons for slashing, and that they're probably tied to where and when you came in. [POLL]