partly_bouncy — Fan Fiction: RPS/TPF — Invasive? Weird? What? The fan historian in me, the person who knows a bit about western literature howls. This material historically has not been viewed as either and to me shows a distinct lack of knowledge of fan fiction and literary traditions. People have written about real people in a fictional sense for hundreds of years.

regan_v — Critical reviews: salt in the soup — Reviewgate (as some people call it) is beginning to feel like the Wank of the Undead: it just doesn't seem to want to die down, at least at my end of the fandom.

viridianphoenix — wearing a straitjacket — I keep thinking about how I gather new fandoms, and how I relate to specific characters. It all seems oddly backwards in relation to commonplace fandom. It may just be the way I was raised, with all the video games and the computer always being there, and how I read so much sci-fi whenever I could get my hands on it. And how all I ever watched were cartoons. Still, when you look at the mainstream of fandom, it's mostly live action TV or books. Me? Neither, really.

katie_m — Things that are problematic about my relationship with fandom: — I suppose the short version is that the highest compliment I can pay a work of art is that it is True. Not realistic, necessarily, but True. And so there are some things I will never be able to accept as Just Fiction, because the purpose of fiction in my world is to reach for the True, and if that's what some works of art are doing... well, I respect and will defend their right to exist, but I don't have to be happy about it.

wemblee — random meta — Basically, what I'm trying to say is -- I'm not quite sure I understand the distinction we're making in which writers are, for lack of a better term, poachable. Is the idea that if a screenwriter gets poached on and doesn't like it, s/he still has bags of money to keep him or her warm at night, whereas we... don't?

liviapenn — Asking permission from the pros — So I keep seeing this argument that getting permission *from pro authors or creators* is somehow *morally* significant when it comes to writing fanfiction.

carolyn_claire — I will help you to get this concept. Look deep into my eyes. — What I'm going to do is try to share some potential contents from the insides of the head of a person who doesn't want her work appropriated for (unauthorized) remix or continuation.

shusu — LJ: on the permissions discussion, far afield and here at the 'Gates — This is the clarification: authors who are so creative that you want to use their work will probably let you use it. Give us a little credit for knowing the nature of the creative impulse. If they say no, they probably have a good reason.

On Creating and Criticism
icarusancalion — How To Write A DVD Commentary — Most writers write terrible DVD commentaries.

beccaelizabeth — Layered Conflict — So, I read in a comic editorial once that there are basically three kinds of conflict. I'm sure the editor got it from some other source, but I remember it from there. He was using it to explain an unpopular story arc, iirc, probably the one where some guy spent an entire issue being all manly emo about if his best friend was gay for him.

askerian in fanficrants — *crosspost no jutsu!* — So I wanted to write a list of tips for beginning writers (the ones who already know about the wonders of grammar and spelling, and are now trying for the next level), but I really am too lazy to baby newborn writers.

china_shop — Revelations 1-3 — Today's revelation was about phonetically representing accents. Generally, readers hate this (though of course there's a continuum, from "gonna" and "kinda", which are readily acceptable, to "[inconprehensible collection of consonants -- think Wuthering Heights]", which are not). And I just figured out why, which makes me so happy.

Polls, Questions, Other
minim_calibre — [Metaish] LJ use questions — So, having noticed a rash of people's anniversary-of-LJing, I was trying yet again to write some meta navelgazing about how the fannish shift from mailing lists to LJ has changed the way in which I use LJ as a fannish space (I've been on LJ for almost 5 years, and at this particular LJ since June of '02).

bluerosefairy in churchoftheair — But do you know what that means? — kangeiko and I started this community because we realized that LJ was COMPLETELY devoid of Carnivale meta. And that cannot continue.