Meta Links (08/08/13 - 14/08/13)
Aug. 15th, 2013 01:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
metanewsmods posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
metanewsNotices
Metanews is taking a one week hiatus. There will be no post on the 21st. Our next post will be on the 28th August.
If you have meta to sumbit or rec, please comment to this post or to the screened Submissions Post. If you'd like to give us blanket permission to link your meta please comment to the Blanket Permissions Post. If you have feedback or questions, check out our FAQ, Contact the Mods, or PM/email. If you'd like to volunteer to link-find or mod, please comment to the Volunteers Post.
General Fandom
Legendary Comics Creators Dismiss Sexism Critiques, Say ‘The Comics Follow Society. They Don’t Lead.’ Alyssa Rosenberg - ThinkProgress: (blog) - "Eric Jerome Dickey, who wrote a Storm arc in which she married Black Panther and becomes co-ruler of Wakanda, an independent African nation that stands in explicit resistance to Western imperialism, might have a few things to say about the possibilities of acknowledging Storm’s origins while foregrounding her personality had he been present. But it wasn’t a balancing act any of the comics creators on the dias seemed prepared to acknowledge."
Fanfiction For Sale: Could Kindle Worlds keep dormant fandoms alive? Keidra Chaney - The Learned Fangirl: (blog) - "What if Kindle Worlds (or a similar licensed fan works publisher) specialized exclusively in fanworks for dormant or dead fandoms? Cancelled shows, older films, etc. Working with the license holder for said show and coming up with a partnership to create “semi-canonical” fan works for sale. It keeps interest in a fandom alive for fans but also keeps interest in a media franchise alive for media owners."
Where YouTube’s Geek Week failed Michelle Jaworski - The Daily Dot: (blog) - "I've consciously called myself a geek since I was 10. That's when I got my first copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone from a bookstore that no longer exists, and to this day it remains one of my more vivid memories. I've embraced that geekiness and have since become interested in a range of other things over the years, but I'm not here to prove my geek cred—nor should I have to."
Which are the biggest ‘ships in fandom? : destinationtoast (tumblr) - "On Monday, The Daily Dot posed this question. Today, I have answers about the most common relationships on AO3. (with a healthy dose of caveats, as usual!) "
Vonnegut Trust sells author's soul to Amazon for fanfiction Aja Romano - The Daily Dot: (blog) - "The move may be seen as part of a recent trend of science fiction lending its approval to new trends in publishing. Last year Margaret Atwood joined the online publishing phenomenon Wattpad, making some stories available to readers for free. And the Vonnegut estate has long had a working relationship with Amazon, recently releasing a set of posthumous stories exclusively to Kindle."
Unititled: hellotailor (tumblr) - "These thoughts tie into something I think about a lot: the gradual failure of showrunners and creators like Steven Moffat, Chris Nolan, and Aaron Sorkin. IMO, these guys are the M. Night Shyamalans of ~mainstream liberal/nerd genre entertainment."
“I’m a Doctor, not a Mrs!” — genderbent McCoy SL Huang: (blog) - "For instance, The Big Bang Theory sends the main characters to a conference, and all of them have their names on name placards. The male PhDs all have “Dr.” in front of their names . . . but neither of the women do. Now, we find out later that one of them hadn’t received her PhD quite yet at this point, but we also find out at the same time that the other one had. So WTF, Big Bang Theory? If the writers just weren’t sure which of the women had graduated yet, why did they have to put “Dr.” on anyone’s nameplate?"
What Do I Want From Femslash? I'm In It For The Characterisation: havocthecat (DW) - "When asking about things people would like to see me talk about, likeadeuce suggested femslash: Hmm, would you be interested in talking about femslash stories you'd like to see more of -- either particular pairings/fandoms or certain kinds of dynamics? I think I should start out by talking about what I don't want to see, which isn't necessarily things that I think are bad. Just that I don't like them."
Ace Comment Meta: amaresu (DW) - "Things have been quiet. Let's have some meta in an easy to create and respond to manner."
Specific Fandoms
A Song of Ice and Fire
Untitled: waverlyrowan (tumblr) - "#gonna be cool when she dies #in her next pov chapter #not sorry
This probably doesn’t require addressing, but whatevs. You don’t have to be sorry, but I do think that you’re incorrect."
Untitled: waverlyrowan (tumblr) - "I honestly believe that Sansa Stark will be in some form of power at the end of ASOIAF, and while I’m happy about this from an I-love-Sansa pod (slash, I ship Sansa and agency), I find it pretty interesting on a meta-textual reading on the intersection of power and ethics as well"
Joanna Lannister: A Bitch in Her Own Right: joanalannister (tumblr) - "Joanna Lannister is one of the characters that has fallen victim to fandom’s romanticization. The chosen wife of Tywin, Joanna is a Lannister twice over, by birth and marriage. Yet she is assumed to be a woman who is at her most “morally ambiguous”..."
Breaking Bad, Mad Men
The Hole in the Middle: Mad Men and Breaking Bad John Perich - Overthinking It: (blog) - "The 20th century is sodden with books and movies critiquing this notion, challenging the idea that hard work can triumph over ill fortune, prejudice, or the obstinacy of old money. Read Upton Sinclair, or John Steinbeck, or listen to Woody Guthrie, or watch Giant (I can keep going). These are stories of men who can’t get everything. But you don’t see as many stories where someone achieves the American Dream and yet is still left hollow – at least not on TV, and not as well as Mad Men and Breaking Bad have."
Doctor Who
Race and Gender in Doctor Who: Don’t Get Your Hopes Up Keidra Chaney - The Learned Fangirl: (blog) - "But the fact is, a woman Doctor with Moffat as showrunner is not gonna happen, and even if it did happen, it would probably suck. We’ve written about Moffat’s lady issue on TLF before. But even if he did decide to cast a woman as the Doctor, I am sure he’d have her knocked up by mid-season or following her male companion around all WHY WON’T YOU MARRY ME."
Doctor Who Moves Backwards In Time Arturo - Racialicious: (blog) - "Make no mistake: Capaldi will emerge as a capable, perhaps superlative, lead for the show. But it’s fair to worry whether he was the right person for the job, or just the one best tailored for showrunner Steven Moffat."
Game of Thrones
Meta Monday: the Wall and Beyond: justadram (tumblr) - "Today’s topic is the Wall and its inspiration, Hadrian’s Wall."
K-Pop
Making those that bloom, blossom: Ga-in from Brown Eyed Girls: Gender and Sexuality in Kpop Raizel Liebler - The Learned Fangirl: (blog) - "Of course, there are varied ways of interpreting this video – one is of showing sex as positive, enlightening, and life-changing. The video tells the narrator’s story of a girl moving into being a woman falling in love, including seeing her desires for her lover grow. Unlike media directed at the male gaze, the focus is on the inclusion of storytelling within desire."
Redshirts, Star Trek:TOS
An Open Letter to John Scalzi SL Huang: (blog) - "Now, we could argue about the problematic portrayals of some of these crew members on the show. I can’t deny that Yeoman Rand’s scripted purpose was probably to be fanservice for the young men watching. Lieutenant Uhura didn’t even get a first name and was a glorified telephone operator—and she got such wonderful lines as, “Captain, I’m frightened.” (It was so bad Nichelle Nichols almost quit the show.) But Star Trek absolutely gets points for trying."
The Rithmatist
The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson, or Your Magic System is Terrible and You Should Feel Terrible chiusse: (blog) - "While we’re told that Rithmatists must study advanced geometry and trigonometry to realize their potential, we’re instead shown that the most they actually need to do is draw a freehand circle as close to the Platonic ideal as possible. If my suspension of disbelief had somehow survived the first few chapters, it would have been obliterated upon reading that the hero’s depressingly quirky female sidekick struggles with her Rithmatic studies from her inability to draw a straight line."
Mary Renault
Mary Renault As Bisexual Author: naraht (DW) - "Discussing Return to Night with queen_ypolita over at maryrenaultfics, a thought occurred: Though Mary Renault is most frequently described as a lesbian author who wrote gay literature, would it not be more accurate to describe her as a bisexual author who wrote bisexual literature?"
Star Trek
Star Trek The Other Frontier: Suzette Chan (blog) - "The controversy over whether a villain was "whitewashed" in Star Trek: Into Darkness prompted me to realize that, through the filter of race, watching Star Trek is like playing 3D chess. The experience plays out on multiple levels. "
Star Wars
Feminism and Star Wars: A Discussion of the Sexualization of Female Characters Fangirl: (blog) - "Even though Leia was a self-rescuing princess in A New Hope, from the start the movie posters portrayed her otherwise*. Similarly, heavy use of the Slave Leia image has given the feminist community a reason to question whether the storytelling choice is genuine. As in anything in life, first impressions do matter."
Tolkien
An Unexpected Journey: Book Length vs. Movie Length in Adapted Franchises Mark Lee - Overthinking It: (blog) - "Most importantly, I felt like the story didn’t advance far enough to justify taking up an entire movie on its own, especially compared to the Lord of the Rings movies. So me being me, I decided to put this issue into quantitative terms. Specifically, I wanted to compare the length of the Hobbit movie to that of the source text, and run the same analysis for the three Lord of the Rings movies."
The Point of Tom Bombadil: starspray (tumblr) - "So there are a lot of characters in the Tolkienverse, and pretty much every single one of them has his/her own fanbase, people who dislike him/her, and people who are indifferent. Almost."
Teen Wolf
Racism And Teen Wolf: cupidsbow (DW) - "There's a conversation going on over on Tumblr about the nature of Scott's werewolfness in Teen Wolf. I have problems with the way the show is presenting this due to the clear race analogy that's been set up over the seasons, and wanted to re-post my thoughts over here on DW, as they fit in with much of my other meta this season."
Metanews is taking a one week hiatus. There will be no post on the 21st. Our next post will be on the 28th August.
If you have meta to sumbit or rec, please comment to this post or to the screened Submissions Post. If you'd like to give us blanket permission to link your meta please comment to the Blanket Permissions Post. If you have feedback or questions, check out our FAQ, Contact the Mods, or PM/email. If you'd like to volunteer to link-find or mod, please comment to the Volunteers Post.
General Fandom
Legendary Comics Creators Dismiss Sexism Critiques, Say ‘The Comics Follow Society. They Don’t Lead.’ Alyssa Rosenberg - ThinkProgress: (blog) - "Eric Jerome Dickey, who wrote a Storm arc in which she married Black Panther and becomes co-ruler of Wakanda, an independent African nation that stands in explicit resistance to Western imperialism, might have a few things to say about the possibilities of acknowledging Storm’s origins while foregrounding her personality had he been present. But it wasn’t a balancing act any of the comics creators on the dias seemed prepared to acknowledge."
topic: sexism
Fanfiction For Sale: Could Kindle Worlds keep dormant fandoms alive? Keidra Chaney - The Learned Fangirl: (blog) - "What if Kindle Worlds (or a similar licensed fan works publisher) specialized exclusively in fanworks for dormant or dead fandoms? Cancelled shows, older films, etc. Working with the license holder for said show and coming up with a partnership to create “semi-canonical” fan works for sale. It keeps interest in a fandom alive for fans but also keeps interest in a media franchise alive for media owners."
topic: fan fiction, topic: kindle worlds
Where YouTube’s Geek Week failed Michelle Jaworski - The Daily Dot: (blog) - "I've consciously called myself a geek since I was 10. That's when I got my first copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone from a bookstore that no longer exists, and to this day it remains one of my more vivid memories. I've embraced that geekiness and have since become interested in a range of other things over the years, but I'm not here to prove my geek cred—nor should I have to."
topic: fandom
Which are the biggest ‘ships in fandom? : destinationtoast (tumblr) - "On Monday, The Daily Dot posed this question. Today, I have answers about the most common relationships on AO3. (with a healthy dose of caveats, as usual!) "
topic: fandom, topic: shipping
Vonnegut Trust sells author's soul to Amazon for fanfiction Aja Romano - The Daily Dot: (blog) - "The move may be seen as part of a recent trend of science fiction lending its approval to new trends in publishing. Last year Margaret Atwood joined the online publishing phenomenon Wattpad, making some stories available to readers for free. And the Vonnegut estate has long had a working relationship with Amazon, recently releasing a set of posthumous stories exclusively to Kindle."
topic: fan fiction, topic: kindle worlds
Unititled: hellotailor (tumblr) - "These thoughts tie into something I think about a lot: the gradual failure of showrunners and creators like Steven Moffat, Chris Nolan, and Aaron Sorkin. IMO, these guys are the M. Night Shyamalans of ~mainstream liberal/nerd genre entertainment."
topic: writing
“I’m a Doctor, not a Mrs!” — genderbent McCoy SL Huang: (blog) - "For instance, The Big Bang Theory sends the main characters to a conference, and all of them have their names on name placards. The male PhDs all have “Dr.” in front of their names . . . but neither of the women do. Now, we find out later that one of them hadn’t received her PhD quite yet at this point, but we also find out at the same time that the other one had. So WTF, Big Bang Theory? If the writers just weren’t sure which of the women had graduated yet, why did they have to put “Dr.” on anyone’s nameplate?"
topic: gender
What Do I Want From Femslash? I'm In It For The Characterisation: havocthecat (DW) - "When asking about things people would like to see me talk about, likeadeuce suggested femslash: Hmm, would you be interested in talking about femslash stories you'd like to see more of -- either particular pairings/fandoms or certain kinds of dynamics? I think I should start out by talking about what I don't want to see, which isn't necessarily things that I think are bad. Just that I don't like them."
topic: femslash, topic: fanfiction
Ace Comment Meta: amaresu (DW) - "Things have been quiet. Let's have some meta in an easy to create and respond to manner."
topic: fandom, topic: asexuality
Specific Fandoms
A Song of Ice and Fire
Untitled: waverlyrowan (tumblr) - "#gonna be cool when she dies #in her next pov chapter #not sorry
This probably doesn’t require addressing, but whatevs. You don’t have to be sorry, but I do think that you’re incorrect."
fandom: asoiaf
Untitled: waverlyrowan (tumblr) - "I honestly believe that Sansa Stark will be in some form of power at the end of ASOIAF, and while I’m happy about this from an I-love-Sansa pod (slash, I ship Sansa and agency), I find it pretty interesting on a meta-textual reading on the intersection of power and ethics as well"
fandom: asoiaf
Joanna Lannister: A Bitch in Her Own Right: joanalannister (tumblr) - "Joanna Lannister is one of the characters that has fallen victim to fandom’s romanticization. The chosen wife of Tywin, Joanna is a Lannister twice over, by birth and marriage. Yet she is assumed to be a woman who is at her most “morally ambiguous”..."
fandom: asoiaf
Breaking Bad, Mad Men
The Hole in the Middle: Mad Men and Breaking Bad John Perich - Overthinking It: (blog) - "The 20th century is sodden with books and movies critiquing this notion, challenging the idea that hard work can triumph over ill fortune, prejudice, or the obstinacy of old money. Read Upton Sinclair, or John Steinbeck, or listen to Woody Guthrie, or watch Giant (I can keep going). These are stories of men who can’t get everything. But you don’t see as many stories where someone achieves the American Dream and yet is still left hollow – at least not on TV, and not as well as Mad Men and Breaking Bad have."
fandom: breaking bad, fandom: mad men
Doctor Who
Race and Gender in Doctor Who: Don’t Get Your Hopes Up Keidra Chaney - The Learned Fangirl: (blog) - "But the fact is, a woman Doctor with Moffat as showrunner is not gonna happen, and even if it did happen, it would probably suck. We’ve written about Moffat’s lady issue on TLF before. But even if he did decide to cast a woman as the Doctor, I am sure he’d have her knocked up by mid-season or following her male companion around all WHY WON’T YOU MARRY ME."
fandom: doctor who, topic: gender, topic: race
Doctor Who Moves Backwards In Time Arturo - Racialicious: (blog) - "Make no mistake: Capaldi will emerge as a capable, perhaps superlative, lead for the show. But it’s fair to worry whether he was the right person for the job, or just the one best tailored for showrunner Steven Moffat."
fandom: doctor who, topic: race
Game of Thrones
Meta Monday: the Wall and Beyond: justadram (tumblr) - "Today’s topic is the Wall and its inspiration, Hadrian’s Wall."
fandom: game of thrones
K-Pop
Making those that bloom, blossom: Ga-in from Brown Eyed Girls: Gender and Sexuality in Kpop Raizel Liebler - The Learned Fangirl: (blog) - "Of course, there are varied ways of interpreting this video – one is of showing sex as positive, enlightening, and life-changing. The video tells the narrator’s story of a girl moving into being a woman falling in love, including seeing her desires for her lover grow. Unlike media directed at the male gaze, the focus is on the inclusion of storytelling within desire."
fandom: kpop, topic: gender
Redshirts, Star Trek:TOS
An Open Letter to John Scalzi SL Huang: (blog) - "Now, we could argue about the problematic portrayals of some of these crew members on the show. I can’t deny that Yeoman Rand’s scripted purpose was probably to be fanservice for the young men watching. Lieutenant Uhura didn’t even get a first name and was a glorified telephone operator—and she got such wonderful lines as, “Captain, I’m frightened.” (It was so bad Nichelle Nichols almost quit the show.) But Star Trek absolutely gets points for trying."
fandom: redshirts, fandom: star trek TOS
The Rithmatist
The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson, or Your Magic System is Terrible and You Should Feel Terrible chiusse: (blog) - "While we’re told that Rithmatists must study advanced geometry and trigonometry to realize their potential, we’re instead shown that the most they actually need to do is draw a freehand circle as close to the Platonic ideal as possible. If my suspension of disbelief had somehow survived the first few chapters, it would have been obliterated upon reading that the hero’s depressingly quirky female sidekick struggles with her Rithmatic studies from her inability to draw a straight line."
fandom: the rithmatist, topic: worldbuilding
Mary Renault
Mary Renault As Bisexual Author: naraht (DW) - "Discussing Return to Night with queen_ypolita over at maryrenaultfics, a thought occurred: Though Mary Renault is most frequently described as a lesbian author who wrote gay literature, would it not be more accurate to describe her as a bisexual author who wrote bisexual literature?"
fandom: Mary Renault, topic: bisexuality
Star Trek
Star Trek The Other Frontier: Suzette Chan (blog) - "The controversy over whether a villain was "whitewashed" in Star Trek: Into Darkness prompted me to realize that, through the filter of race, watching Star Trek is like playing 3D chess. The experience plays out on multiple levels. "
fandom: star trek, topic: race
Star Wars
Feminism and Star Wars: A Discussion of the Sexualization of Female Characters Fangirl: (blog) - "Even though Leia was a self-rescuing princess in A New Hope, from the start the movie posters portrayed her otherwise*. Similarly, heavy use of the Slave Leia image has given the feminist community a reason to question whether the storytelling choice is genuine. As in anything in life, first impressions do matter."
fandom: star wars, topic: feminism
Tolkien
An Unexpected Journey: Book Length vs. Movie Length in Adapted Franchises Mark Lee - Overthinking It: (blog) - "Most importantly, I felt like the story didn’t advance far enough to justify taking up an entire movie on its own, especially compared to the Lord of the Rings movies. So me being me, I decided to put this issue into quantitative terms. Specifically, I wanted to compare the length of the Hobbit movie to that of the source text, and run the same analysis for the three Lord of the Rings movies."
fandom: tolkien
The Point of Tom Bombadil: starspray (tumblr) - "So there are a lot of characters in the Tolkienverse, and pretty much every single one of them has his/her own fanbase, people who dislike him/her, and people who are indifferent. Almost."
fandom: tolkien
Teen Wolf
Racism And Teen Wolf: cupidsbow (DW) - "There's a conversation going on over on Tumblr about the nature of Scott's werewolfness in Teen Wolf. I have problems with the way the show is presenting this due to the clear race analogy that's been set up over the seasons, and wanted to re-post my thoughts over here on DW, as they fit in with much of my other meta this season."
fandom: teen wolf, topic: racism, topic: feminism
no subject
Date: 2013-08-15 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-15 09:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-15 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-15 05:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-15 12:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-15 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-24 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-25 05:20 am (UTC)