General Fandom Meta -

justhuman - EP: How is it the middle of November? - Although, one interesting thing for me that came out of the discussion was Fabu's question of what makes an interesting female character. [...] When I was done doing a brain dump in the comments in Fabu's post, I finally came to this conclusion, I suppose all my favorite females are the type that could walk into a bar, buy a guy a drink, and enjoy a one night stand.

thelastgoodname - On choice, and questions, and arguments, and understandings - An awful lot of people seem pretty defensive about this topic, don't they? The whole thing, this time, seemed to begin with a pretty reasonable question — why do we do the things we do? — and then Something Happened, and the virtual shouting started. It doesn't even seem to be necessarily related to people not listening (as [Bad username or site: musesfool supposed @ livejournal.com]), but rather simply that a lot of people understood the question, "why do we do the things we do?" to be a condemnation, and heard it as, "why don't you do what I do?"

thelastgoodname - On Slash, Het, the Redheaded Stepchild, and Rivalry - The most recent little explosion of deep and meaningful conversation happened at a particularly opportune time for my latest little obsession: how does media fandom differ from sports fandom? // The answer, once more, seems to be: it doesn't.

aingeal8c - The AU/AR Poll results - Conclusions on the AU/AR poll

furiosity - Musings on self-promotion in fandom: when does it become - And since then, I've often resisted making mention of my own fic when searches came up -- it just makes me feel ooky. Part of it is that I hate most of what I write and part of it is that based on my limited experience, fandom is a meritocracy and if something is worth reading, it'll be noticed on its own merit. Eventually.

smashsc - a newsletters poll - I've been thinking alot about how individuals categorize fic. And tonight when I sat down to work on [info]the_wireless I started thinking about how newsletters sort fic and what effect that has. // So I have a poll [Poll]

_inbetween_ - slashers - Reading some of the later comments to the con-slash-bragging, I noticed something rather disturbing, which reminded me again of how slash isn't really that liberating thing I'd thought it to be (for two days only, I hasten to add) but another regulating instance, often just keeping the women happy and in their place while they think they are rad. // The point in question was that the actors should not be told about slash because it would make them uncomfortable. Not because it was in public, but because it was about gay sex.

nakeisha - Established relationships vs. first timers, romance and on-screen relationships - Anyone who knows me will already know that I prefer established relationship (ER) stories to first time (FT) stories, and the longer I'm in fandom, the more I find myself wanting to read mainly ER stories. [...] What follows are my thoughts on why I prefer ER to FT stories, and how, IMO, it ties in with romance.

cesario - In which junk food metaphors go one step too far. - I've decided that I really just have one Unpopular Opinion at the moment, and though it's not fannish per se, it has fannish implications. // So without further ado, // When it comes to television, I have one basic premise: television is crap.

worldserpent - Musings on the Power law, etc. - I think in general, if something is unpopular in fandom, whether there are reasons that can be clearly defined or not, there is little that can be done to make it much less unpopular. In a general sense, there is little you can do when people have no incentive to change. (In other words, analysis only helps when there is the will to solve a "problem.")

sophia_helix - testing a theory - 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]

jennyo - A Thought (Snarktastic) - Like, that's really the funny thing. The craziest shippers in fandom are now fans of m/m ships with meh chemistry and hackneyed character types, and I suppose that in retrospect, much as in the past, it's really loud crazyshippers who wreck fandom, and this time, when you call them on their crazyshipping, they scream oppression, which is what's really annoying. // Just a thought: instead of destroying each other, we need to go hunting crazyshippers.

lunacy - . . .sigh. - Also, reading through this group of semi-academic essays on shoujo manga, I find this fascinating quote on the uses of gender & sexual ambiguity and the attraction of yaoi to Japanese girls which seems to relate to the recurring rant about why aren't slash readers very into femslash: Perhaps, then, shôjo manga provide a safe, female-dominated world in which to explore a broad range of possible human sexuality.

Fandom-Specific Meta ( Cut for potential spoilers in Buffy & BSG )

On Writing/Creating

lunacy - [...ground control to...] - So I was pondering (yeah, ponderponderponder, that's me), and I can't decide if this is just my own experience, or a specific writing philosophy at work, or what: basically, I find I can't -force- characters, most especially fanfiction characters, to do things-- I can't control them, if(!) controlling them and/or making them bow to my godly will is in fact the point of writing fics.

schemingreader - some thoughts on writing sex scenes in fan fiction - I had a few thoughts that I wanted to share and some questions I wanted to throw out on the subject of writing about sex in fan fiction.