Fandom Meta

pandarus - In Defence of Fanfic (a very belated essay) I’m going to use Hobb’s essay as my jumping off point, I think, but there’s liable to be a fair bit of meandering along the way. Before going any further, though, I must make it clear that I have absolutely shedloads of respect for Robin Hobb as an author. I think she’s one hell of a writer, and it saddens me that potential readers in fandom are associating her with this rant rather than discovering her, as I did, via her novels. I realise that one’s attitude is liable to be coloured by the rant, but I really would urge potential readers to give her books a look despite any disagreement they may have with her over the issues outlined in the rant – after all, I’m sure that many of my favourite writers have views on matters of politics/religion/gender/class/whatever that I’d disagree with violently, did I happen to learn of them. It doesn’t detract from the art they produce, even though it may sometimes irrevocably colour one’s perception of said art.

kaiz - OMG Meta I think that my problem is that by emphasizing th[e] distinction [between single author vs. multiple authors], we end up side stepping a really key issue in the debate. Namely, who gets to talk about the characters and the story and how they get to talk about it

thawrecka - Fandom. It's so. Thing. Some thoughts on tailoring fandom to your own experience: // It's not as hard as you think. It's not as hard as I used to think. I used to submerse myself in a fandom completely when I fell in love with a new thing and various parts of the fandom at large would freak me out and I'd run screaming or the whole thing would just be too chaotic and I'd burn out hard.

prettyveela - In Defense of Fandom Wank! Speaking of links, Fandom Wank is the Holy Grail fandom Bible when it comes to the history of our happy fandom we call Harry Potter. For people who just joined the fandom last year or this year, you can go into the archive of wank and break the HP Davinci Code by finding out who was friends with who, what fic caused a bunch of hoopla, and shippers have been battling since 2001. [ETA: older post linked by accident]

furiosity - Keep on poppin' off at them jaws because we ain't stoppin' The only victims of mockery are those who are being named, and most of the time? They deserve it. And not because fandom_wank members are all Mean Girls Who Look For People Who Supposedly Deserve To Be Mocked So They Can Feel Better About Themselves. But because believe it or not, there are things on this earth that deserve mocking. What a shocker, I know. We point out moments of "fandom is fucking funny" and laugh about them. That's the purpose of fandom_wank -- to laugh at things that are funny in fandom. You might say that one person's absurdity is another person's deeply held belief, and that's when I begin to mock you.

worldserpent - To squee or not to squee? Impressions via Osmosis I'm astounded by this wank because I've never seen this before. Obviously, the real reason people are offended is that it's considered rude to tell people what to do in their own journals; it's the non-fictional equivalent of telling someone that writing ship fic has so been done before and you'd really like to see more gen, or "your fic would be so much better if you changed the pairing." Anyhow, you'd expect the post to be something like "OMG SQUEEEEEEE H/W 4EVARRRRR~!!!!!" but I'd really characterize it as mindful squee, rather than mindless. I've never seen anyone criticize someone for failing to be sufficiently deep in any of my fandoms.

cyberducks - A light bulb goes on . Over the years I watched quite a few TV shows with actors I found attractive in it - there are a lot of hot actors playing interesting characters out there - but never have I wanted to read fan fiction about these shows, while I can't get enough of Methos in fan fiction because the character is endlessly fascinating to me. And while PW is a very hot man his looks may not be the primary reason that Methos has eaten my brain.

linaerys - Celebrity, Invisible Friends, Music So, I was reading this con report about Joe Flanigan who seems to be awesome and sexy in person, which is very cool for him and the people who know him, and I got weirdly squicked out.// Because I don't want to know. I don't want to know if he's cool and charming, or weirdly religious, or raises iguanas or what-have-you.

pitchblackrose - The genre of fanfiction Is fanfic just another genre? I mean, it is kind of accepted that if you write romance then it doesn't mean that you can write suspense. Or if you write horror that you can write coming-of-age stories. I know many of you write original stuff - how do you feel about the difference? Does one come easier than the other? Because damn it, fanfic is supposed to be easier than original stuff! It's supposed to be like riding a bicycle with the training wheels still attached.

sidewalk_doctor - fandom blabbering... so what else is new? Dudes, I have concluded that UC shippage is the way to go. And I was bored and made a list of the top 5 reasons to ship UC.

Specific Fandom Meta

( Cut for possible Spoilers for the Fandoms: anime?style=mine )

On Reading and Writing and Theory

cesperanza - Thrilling Stories Is it just me, or do some of you also experience writing as almost like a sickness? I'm just really never happy unless I'm writing something, and increasingly my favorite time is--well, right now: almost finished with a story, but before it's finished and released.

ithiliana - Spring has sprung! And this discipline thing! Yet one way and another, through doing creative writing and critical theory (and one reason I so loved critical theory was that it offered another set of methodologies and strategies for "reading" texts that did not involve limits based on a narrow set of subjectively chosen aesthetic ones), I've spent years working out of the new critical binding (eek, I knew bondage was in there somewhere). // And lo I have come in my fifties to fanfiction! // And (yada yada sturgeon's law and some is terrible and some is incredible and quality varies and blah blah blah) I find that the old genre terms and much literary terminology isn't particularly useful. // Then tonight I realized: why should it be?

ptyx - More Meta Analogies, or "Cannibalising Canon" What does exist, according to Derrida, are different chains of signification. We can imagine all our fics as part of this chain, in symbiotic relationship, mutually supplementing each other, defining and redefining a phantasm of truth, which never has existed nor will exist as something fixed, graspable, known, or understood. This phantasm, produced by a desire for some essence or unity - this phantasm, this desire, is real, but there is nothing like "truth" or "reality" behind it.

Humor, Polls, etc

china_shop - Horoscopes ARIES: (March 21 to April 20) A compulsive need to procrastinate could see you joining some bizarre but winning new fandoms (think anime, or maybe ZZ Top RPS). Your friends' list will be amazed at the speed with which you acclimate to the prevalence of mpreg, tentaclefic and wingfic in these new arenas, but will baulk when you start writing three-way crossovers between anime, WWF (World Wrestling Federation), and your old fandom.

wisteria_ - [insert dorky "to spoil or not to spoil" pun here] Do you read spoilers for your favorite shows? [POLL]