Fandom Meta

issyadore - That perfect feeling You know what the best feeling is, re: fandom? It's not someone making an icon for you, it's not getting emails from strangers, it's not even getting two pages of comments on the fic you just wrote. No: It's the moment when you suddenly get it.

yourkismet - META-POST The readings this week made me reflect back on my personal experience with Livejournal and wonder once more about the "ethics" of online communities and their ideal, and real, forms and functions. What did becoming, for a time, an obsessive LJ user, mean for me as a subject, a community member, and a writer? What did my decision to transition to a rather ambivalent position of usership (a "gawker," if you will) who continues to both read and comment but posts no longer - well, usually anyway...? What, if any, relation does this all have to broader concerns about how online communities can and should map, and map onto, identity and action?

jaybee65 - Fanfic preferences meta, or why I'm such a weirdo I'm not going to try to come up with the Unified Field Theory of Slash. I'm not sure it can be done at all, but even if it's possible, I'm not the right person. Rather, I'm going to offer myself up as a subject for those who *are* engaged in that analysis. Think of me as one little piece of the jigsaw puzzle everyone's laboring over. I'm that oddly shaped one that people can't quite figure out where the hell it goes until the damn thing's nearly finished. That is, if they even get that far and don't fling the puzzle across the room in frustration first.

monanotlisa - OT...3? Now, I am still pushing around the idea of fictional threesomes in my mind. Obviously, it's not a recent or terribly uncommon trend, what with all these OT3s floating around in fandom, but my response was usually one of overwhelming indifference. Part of the reason is my trouble with the suspension of disbelief,

deianaera - Racism, America, and fandom To be fair, yes, as legions British fans have repeatedly taken the time and effort to point out, American culture is not the same as British culture, which is what is being twisted in the HP series. From what I’ve seen, Americans do view race differently than most European cultures. . . . However, the generalization of American fans as phobic about mixed-race relationships and portraying black characters as real characters because we secretly lust for lithe, lily-skinned, English schoolboys is just that: a generalization.

Specific Fandom Meta

( Cut for possible Spoilers for the Fandoms: Mary Renault, HP, LOTR )

Links, Polls, etc

commodorified - Reeling, Writhing and Arithmetic (but no Uglification or Derision) about boyslash, grrlslash, het, men, women, and possibly penguins [POLL]

aingeal8c - Slash Crossover Poll [POLL]