Fandom Meta

mona1347 - The Drugs of Fandom You know how all you fangeeks out there sometimes lean back a little from your computer screens, rub the glow from your eyes and say, "Whoa. What the hell am I doing? Did I really just spend 4 hours reading Snape/Dumbledore hurt-comfort because it's by THAT author I'll whore myself out to for absolutely anything omg I would follow them into hell?" // Well I believe that fandom is every bit as a) enjoyable and b) addictive as hard drugs. // I have this whole theory about fandoms and the drugs they are analogous to. It goes something like this *presents*:

i_am_schizo - Fannish stuff I know I’m a few years too late and all but excuse me while I praise my current fandom here because as much as it hurts I guess I gotta find myself a new one soon as, in fact, I mentioned before, but I’m running out of long/recced/interesting stories to read, I think, and even though I probably won’t have that much time soon, you gotta read something in between, don’t you? Otherwise I’ll grow restless and nervous and generally unhappy, more unhappy than usual anyway.

m_butterfly - Why Ask Why? (Or: The Great Slash Debate, Round Six-Hundred and Thirty-Five) What interests me today isn't "Why do we slash?" at all, it's "Why does fandom spend so much time asking 'Why do we slash?'--and why does it come up with such elaborate answers to that question?" // I think, actually, that there's a fairly simple answer, one that's easy enough to figure out if you consider two things. The first is that fandom these days is very academic, and the other is an even older principle than that: the lady doth protest too much.

ithiliana - Disclaimers, RPF issues, Pro Fic issues, and Conspiracy Issues However, I'd argue that the novel is akin to the broad category of the kind of writing that in fandom we call RPF--except of course he did it for profit (and apparently is getting lots and lots and lots of profit). He wrote about an organization that exists and has its own history (one that the current Pope led -- I don't recall right off the top of my head if he founded it or not because it's early Monday and I was grading all yesterday), and showing them as engaged in the Catholic Church's centuries-long "coverup."

sistermagpie - Online identities again I was just taking this poll about fandom, which is pretty interesting. There are a number of questions asking how you would feel if you found out someone in fandom turned out to be a different age or gender than you thought them to be, and // ...how you would feel if they had lied about these things. // It's weird because for most of them I had to say "I don't know." Because I realized I'd have to know why the person lied. The idea of being wrong about this stuff didn't bother me at all--I've been wrong before about someone's gender or age not because the person actively lied but because I for some reason got it in my head they were something else. But when asked whether I'd care if the person lied it seemed like I'd be annoyed just because when I think of someone lying on-line I automatically think that person is intentionally irritating. They're the type who make up stories for attention or whatever, and even if it's nothing so elaborate as the "my cat got set on fire, please send money!" type it's just irritating to have someone say one thing just to see how you'll react when they're really another.

Specific Fandom Meta

( Cut for possible Spoilers for the Fandoms: SGA, HP, DW  )

On Reading and Writing

musesfool - to read makes our speaking english good One of the things that makes writing fanfiction interesting to me is the need to sound like these already established characters, or enough like them that a fan of them can go along for the ride - if it's a tv show or a movie, the reader can say, "oh yeah, I could hear [Character A] saying the words." It makes some things harder to write than others, though - I still have fear of writing in any Sorkin fandoms, because the dialogue is *so* stylized that if it's done badly, it can be painful (and there are people who just don't like it and so find it painful even when it's done well *snerk*). Same with BtVS - most of the stuff I've written in Buffy has been short and introspective, so I don't *have* to handle the cadences of the conversations. And the banter in O11 is looser, with a jazzier, less rat-a-tat-tat rhythm than either Sorkin's or Whedon's.

ethrosdemon - [I am not giving blanket permission for people to write bad dialect,] My true commentary on most of these hijinx boils down to the fact that SPN/WBrps is the first mainstream, well-constructed fandom that revolves around characters who are established to be Southern and are not marginal. So that gives a free hand to tell stories set in that culture in a way that hasn't really happened before. Cue: deluge. Because it hasn't existed before and is still so new, people are writing it out. I think it will taper off once people get it off their chests completely, say what they have to say, and tell the stories they think need telling. Part of it is like being really obsessed with a certain flavor for a while, recently for me it was Thai coconut curry. I ate it, um, let's say A LOT for a few months. Now, I am on to tomatoes. It's the same with fandom. It's synergetic, and soon something else shiny will fall in our laps, and that will be that.

meri_oddities - Some Thoughts On Posting In Parts Last week, I finished posting a story in 15 parts.. . . What I didn't expect was the number of people who liked the drawn out aspect of the story. I also was surprised by the people who would not have read the story at all if it hadn't been posted in bite-sized chunks.

Questions,Polls, Other

commodorified - Action verbs to AVOID when writing your resume... OK, friendslist; what are some of the ways you've gotten fannish experience (writing, editing, vidding, research, wiki work, what-have-you) into a resume and minimized the fannish/adult content aspects a bit? // I don't need to HIDE the fannishness, exactly. It's more a matter of emphasising that just because I was doing it for free doesn't mean I wasn't doing it properly.

arysteia - Pornography: good clean fun, or the root of all evil? I was chuckling most of the time, and yet it did make me think, which I suppose was its purpose. Specifically, I started thinking about my relationship with pornography. And then I thought, huh, research, I should find out what a sample of my peers think. So voila this poll. [POLL]

madsciencechick - [Fandom Participation] I'm doing an informal little research project. You could give me a big hand by answering the following questions. [POLL]

ljkrissy - Introducing a new account level In addition to the Free and Paid levels, we're adding a new account level called Sponsored+. The Sponsored+ account level is an option for users who want access to premium features but would rather have advertising on their journal and Friends page and in the LiveJournal site than purchase a Paid account.

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