General
cereta - Notcapade - To all those of you going to Escapade, safe travels and happy gathering! To those of you who are not going (like me), I issue the following challenge: sometime in the next 4 days, post something to your LJ that you think people would like to talk about, have an actual discussion about, whether it's just "Why We Love {Character/Show/Episode/Book/Plot}" or an analysis or a metacommentary or even a "How do you explain/avoid explaining this wacky fandom thing to friends/family/co-workers?"

mooyoo - Fanfiction.net vs. LiveJournal We don't all really really know each other the way you know someone in the Real World, but I tend to feel like, at the very least, I know a little about the tastes of the people reading my fic on LiveJournal, or what someone on my flist means when they write that they didn't like something I've done. The internet in general is pretty anonymous, but fanfiction.net tends to be so much more so than here, where you can have conversations and back-and-forth discussions rather than just a quick drop of the line.

meri_oddities - Fannish Entitlement (Part of cereta's Notcapade) - Over the last little while, I've been hearing all sorts of things about authors whose wishes are not being respected with regard to WIPs or stories pulled from the 'net for one reason or another. The readers feeling that they are entitled to something from an author once she starts a story.

witchqueen - Notcapade: Fannish catnip vs. Fannish caviar *or* Break My Theory. Please. - So, at last year's Eclecticon, I ran a panel on why some high quality television shows didn't get very much fannish activity, while other shows that were poorly written/acted/directed got lots and lots of fannish love.

florahart - Slash/Gay. No, that's not the pairing, though I imagine someone could probably write it... - So earlier I was chatting with someone (who shall remain nameless unless s/he chooses to self-identify in comments here) who was annoyed about the use of the word slash in describing how someone writes a particular character, as in, "I usually write so-and-so slashy." This person suggested it would be better to just say, "I write this person gay." And then I got to wondering about whether "slash" --outside of the issue of canon versus fanfic sexuality, because I know folks have discussed this before-- means "gay" in general, or in some contexts, or if it means something else.

marinarusalka - Some cracktastic meta for Notcapade - See, fandom is basically a two-party system. You've got your slashers and your hetters. The slashers are the Republicans: a lot of people say they don't like them, but they seem to be everywhere and always running things.

fairestcat - Notcapade: What makes you join a fandom? - So, for me the interesting question isn't so much what makes me want to read the fic to begin with, it's what makes me stick around and really join/become actively involved in a fandom long-term.

cathexys - Notcapade: Generic Framing - Yes, we like the fic that rips us apart, that goes against expectations etc., but we only can enjoy it, ultimately if and when we've read enough of the "typical" ones. In fact, I've always thought that the best cliche-bending fics are the ones that love and embrace the very cliche they're partly mocking.

penknife - Notcapade: What did you learn from your first fandom? - I suspect that fandom of origin really makes a difference to how people approach all kinds of things, from canon to slash to shipping to discussions about writing. I've particularly noticed this in Harry Potter fandom, with some people coming into it as their first fandom and some people coming out of various media fandoms and some people drifting over from anime. So, here's my question for the weekend: How do you think your first fandom shapes your approach to canon and to fannish discussion?

Fandom-Specific
( Cut for possible spoilers in Chronicles of Narnia, Doctor Who, Supernatural, Harry Potter, The West Wing, SGA and X-Men fandoms. )

On Creating and Criticism
xanphibian - questions for fanfic writers (any fandom, doesn't matter) - If you've written something in which your characters change/grow because of the setting or experiences in your 'verse, does it effect the way you write them in later fics, not in that verse?

Polls, Questions, Other
thelastgoodname - Meta on "Why I Slash" et al. Why do we ask ourselves and each other these* questions? Is it that fannish people are inherently more introspective about their hobbies?

soundingsea - fanthropology: lj habits I'm full of curiosity about other people's LJ habits, so I bring you today's pointless poll.

cereta - Notcapade: Making the jump to fiction - What I want to know is, on a purely personal level, what is it that moves you from "I really like this show" to "I must read/write fan fiction about it?"