General
yhlee in deadbrowalking - WisCon panel: Cultural Appropriation in Fantasy. - The panel focused on cultural appropriation in (written) sf/f in the broad sense of ethnicity/culture, without getting too bogged down in definitional matters.

cofax7 - untitled - And this is the point where I go, yeah, but. Because once you draw that line, you're making it impossible for any fiction writer to describe any experience other than their own. I've never been homeless, so I'm not allowed to write about a homeless person? I've never been black, so I can't write about black characters?

rilina - Cultural appropriation--a few thoughts - I'm sure there's someone out there who will read that description of my writing during my teen years and want to call it "cultural appropriation." After all, does an Asian American really ever have the right to write generic Eurofantasy?

glitterdemon - untitled - i've found myself increasingly bothered by the current use of the AU terminology in fandom. maybe i just have an overactive imagination, but didn't AU used to mean a very specific type of different reality, wherein john is a grocer and rodney is a professor, or mulder is a marine biologist and krycek is a merman, or 'nsync are guerillas, or every character ever written into fanfic is a prostitute? i love that shit, and i always find myself disappointed when a story is labelled as AU, but really only deviates from canon in, like, one detail. in which case, by the way, the majority of fic is AU. it does seem like a rather superfluous distinction.

matociquala - the problem of cultural appropriation - It's a sticky one. Because one can try to be inclusive, and run the risk of offending somebody--or one can stick to one's own patch, and allow one's work to succumb to paucity and poverty.

misinoo - Fic Reading Habits -- Poll results - I was a bit slow at consolidating results from that poll on fic reading habits , but finally remembered to do so.

wordsofastory - Cultural appropriation - Even if there was a writer who was so amazingly talented that s/he could convey the entire experience of Japanese culture (because Japan is apparently the metaphor I'm going with here), the question becomes "whose Japanese culture?" A businessman's? A housewife's? A teenager's? The culture in Tokyo? In a rural village? Now? Five years ago, when s/he was doing the research? Five years from now? There's just no way to convey all of that, and so appropriation has to fail.

sugargroupie - My 1.5 cents worth. - I've been thinking about whether or not I should contribute to the cultural appropriation discussion going around, since last night when I came home from work.

toomuchfandom - 5 things in fandom in general that annoy me - 5 things in fandom in general that annoy me

oxeniensis - Like a river bends - I've been thinking a bit about RPS (or any real person fiction) recently. It seems to be having a resurgence (or maybe it's just my flist, I don't know), and I was wondering what about it appeals.

rydra_wong - The Great Race Discussion Linkspam - For personal reference, and anyone else who's interested, because we need to be having these conversations, and right now it seems like we might be reaching some sort of long-overdue tipping point, with discussions springing up all over.

fajrdrako - Superman and the gay audience... - An intersting sentence: "In comics, it has become increasingly common to not only create new gay characters but also to rework the mythology of long-time heroes to make them gay, as is the case with both Batwoman and Colossus." Uh, yes - and who else?

lillianmorgan - Your vanilla friend looks like something I need - As I’m reading this fic I’m thinking ‘Can this really work?’ I mean the reason I am drawn to this pairing in the first place is because of the fact that they don’t work. They’re opposites and for some reason, known only to the gods of fucked up love, they eventually attract. That the fun of the pairing is to look at them and say, “Oh yeah, they want to but they just haven’t got around to it yet” - for whatever reason: time, pride, hatred, convenience etc – and rather than miss out on all the angst and the turbulence and the mockage and the pain, we suffer with them. And then after however many episodes or seasons or fic trials we get to the good stuff.

toomuchfandom - 6 things that annoy me in fanfic writing - *steps on soapbox yet again*

inlovewithnight - Here's to you, fandom, you impossible little snot - Because what other people do with their fannish energy in no way changes or diminishes what I choose to do with mine.

On Creating and Criticism
telesilla - Mash Up and Remix and meta about the same - I'm surprised that more people don't want to do remix type challenges.

xoverau - On Drugs In Fic - One thing I really, really wish authors would research, field-test, or run past experienced betas? GETTING WASTED.

Polls, Questions, Other
irisgirl12000 - fandom enquiry - When you see "drabble" in the genre/category description or in the header, how many words do you expect the offering to be?

alto2 - How do you write? - Between some things I've read lately, and a conversation or two with some friends, I'm wondering: How do you write?

isiscolo - timeshifting fandoms for the purpose of crossovers - If you were reading a crossover in which the timelines of the two fandoms involved don't coincide with the same timing the author uses, how would you react?