metanews | Meta Links 9-25-14 through 10-1-14

Notices
If you have meta to submit 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.

Links

General Fandom

The Fall of Superheroes: Chris Gavaler (blog) - "It's not quite genre domination–there are still more cops and doctors and lawyers on TV than I can list–but have two publishing companies ever generated so many simultaneous franchises? Marvel and DC are spreading their genes faster than the zombie plague. The superhero apocalypse is here. Will we survive it?"

topic:superheroes

Reviewing Rebels & Remembering Henson on Assembly of Geeks: Assembly of Geeks (podcast) - "Many of us are getting ready for the premiere of Star Wars Rebels, but Fangirl has already seen the movie and an episode of the series. She gives her spoiler-free review during today's meeting. Also, we take time to celebrate the work of Jim Henson by looking back on some of the music, humor and memories of Sesame Street and the Muppets."

fandom:starwars, fandom:sesamestreet, fandom:themuppets

Steampunk and the Heroine's Journey: Part Three: Mary Sheridan (blog) - "Diversity does not precisely describe what is needed in today's literary market."

topic:herosjourney, topic:diversity

Magical Mondays: Beauty, Morality, and Magic: Lady Saika (blog) - "Western standards of beauty are ubiquitous, and just one of the many things they've infiltrated is our retellings of fairy tales. All too often, you can tell who's good and who's evil just by looking at the characters' faces."

topic:bodyimage, topic:femalecharacter, topic:magic

Sexualized Saturdays: Single Queer Characters Are Still Queer!: polyglotpisces (blog) - "A few months ago, I wrote a piece about what I termed "Magical Obligatory Queer Dating": to make a long story short, some characters have greatness thrust upon them, and some have seemingly obligatory relationships with the only other LGBTQ+ character on their show thrust upon them. However, we sometimes see an alternate, almost opposite, scenario—queer characters on TV shows who rarely or never seem to have any romantic relationships."

topic:queer, topic:characterization

How To Respectfully Decline Kinky Content In Your Request Letter: A Yuletide (and other fest) Guide: implicated2 (DW) - ": I'll look at someone's dear author letter and they've requested not to receive certain kinds of kinky content in one of these thoughtless ways. There is nothing wrong, of course, with requesting that your Yuletide fic not contain BDSM or other kinds of kink. But the way you express your request can have a big impact."

topic:yuletide, topic:exchanges, topic:letters

Specific Fandoms

Bayou
What We Don't Plan For: Kate Polak (blog) - "Last week, we didn't have the grand jury decision, nor did we have the video. What we did have was one volume of a bizarre little comic that riffs off of Alice in Wonderland."

fandom:bayou, topic:racism

DC Comics
Untitled: themyskira (tumblr) - "There are elements of Simone's Wonder Woman run I dislike, but if there's one thing she understood about the character, it's that Diana — although prepared to fight, and even to kill if there's absolutely no other way — will always look for a peaceful resolution before anything else."

fandom:dccomics

Disney
What Disney movies taught me about being gay: Samantha Allan (blog) - "Whether or not Ursula is, well, an Ursula, Disney's side characters and villains have always functioned as barometers of Otherness in American culture."

fandom:disney

Doctor Who
Time Heist - Series 8 - Episode Five (Meta/Review): Boji (AO3) - "If the episode is a commentary on banks, bankers and the accumulation of wealth for it's own sake - as the Telegraph review suggests, and which which to some degree it is - then it's a commentary drawn with very wide brush strokes. "

doctorwho

Frozen
Frozen song translation meta part 3/3: chordatesrock (DW) - "The conclusion to my Frozen song translation meta series!"

fandom:frozen, topic:translations

Game of Thrones
The Fifth Season Solar: msunyata (blog) - "Season five. It's the biggest question mark of the whole television/adaptation stage to date - and we have the trepidation, cautious optimism, and outright anger to prove it."

fandom:gameofthrones

Harry Potter
Why evangelical mommy bloggers don't want you to read 'Harry Potter': Chris Osterndorf (blog) - "It was reported this week that an evangelical mother named Grace Ann, aka proudhousewife, posted a "Christian" rewrite of the first Potter book on FanFiction.net, as an alternative for her children who had been asking to read the series."

fandom:harrypotter

NCIS
Inside the biggest show nobody on the internet watches: S.E. Smith (blog) - "The most-watched television drama worldwide isn't a hip new Fox show or an irresistible BBC classic. It's NCIS, the long-running CBS procedural that the Internet loves to forget, but one that 57 million viewers around the world manage to remember just fine."

fandom:ncis

Once Upon A Time
Once Upon a Time in Conversation: A Tale of Two Sisters: Jill Pantozzi (blog) - "Share your thoughts on the episode with fellow fans!"

fandom:onceuponatime, warning:spoilers

Pacific Rim
Untitled: actualmenacebuckybarnes (tumblr) - "Anonymous said: Hiya! So I see that you love pacific rim, I do too and Mako Mori is like one of my favourite characters, but I can't help but to notice that her character revolves around being Pentecost's step(?) daughter to Raleigh's partner. And I guess that doesn't really sit well with me cos she appears to have her own story but when I think of it this way it's not? What do you think?"

fandom:pacificrim, topic:femalecharacter

Pochamani
More To Love?: Revisiting Pochamani: Tsunderin (blog) - "Let's face it: finding media of any sort that's ready to delve into fat acceptance is few, far, and in between, especially when it comes to heavier girls and women."

fandom:manga, topic:bodyimage

Sleepy Hollow
Sleepy Hollow sparks fan discussions on diversity in the media: Marissa Lee (blog) - "Racebending.com interviewed the producers and cast of Sleepy Hollow as part of a promotional press line at San Diego ComicCon. "

fandom:sleepyhollow, topic:diversity

A Song of Ice and Fire
A Song of Ice and Fire and the R+L=J Fan Theory: A New Spin on an Old Trope?: MadameAce (blog) - "At the beginning of the series, we learn that Robert Baratheon became king of the Seven Kingdoms after leading a revolt against the previous king. He did this because he believed Prince Rhaegar Targaryen kidnapped Lyanna Stark, the woman Robert loved. In the end, Lyanna passed away, and her fridging fueled Robert's internal pain for the next fifteen some years until his own death."

fandom:asoiaf, warning:rape

Star Wars
Jumping Into Hyperspace Theories: Tricia Barr and B.J. Priester (podcast) - "Today marks the release of the first episode of Hyperspace Theories, a new Star Wars podcast centered on speculation and storytelling in the galaxy far, far away."

fandom:starwars

Fangirls Going Rogue: Episode 11: Teresa Delgado and Tricia Barr (podcast) - "On this month's Fangirls Going Rogue, Teresa and Tricia put on their running sneakers and caught up to Mary Franklin to talk about Star Wars Celebration. It's a Star Wars Rebels-filled episode with Erich Schoeneweiss (Del Rey, Star Wars Books) and Johnamarie Macias (The Wookiee Gunner) sharing memories from San Diego Comic-Con, Dragon Con, the Star Wars Rebels screening in New York City, and looking forward to New York Comic Con. Teresa's Star Wars Bookworms Goodreads discussion forum sparks the character discussion: Is R2-D2 sentient?"

fandom:starwars

Transparent
How Amazon's 'Transparent' is changing the game for trans people: Jen Richards (blog) - "This fact alone would give Transparent the authenticity such a timely and often contentious issue demands. With the rapid changes in trans visibility, the community has become increasingly vocal about how it's portrayed."

fandom:transparent, topic:transgender

The 'Transparent' cast talks Jeffrey Tambor, binge-watching, and Amazon Studios: Rae Votta (blog) - "The series, which deals with a father's late-life transition to living as a woman named Maura, wasn't intended to be about secrecy at all."

fandom:transparent

Twin Peaks

Scattered Twin Peaks Thoughts: local_max (LJ) - "But here's a few things that have come to mind while watching so far."

fandom:twinpeaks, warning:spoilers, topic:characterization, topic:canon, topic:relationships, warning:spoilers

Welcome to Night Vale
Oh, My Pop Culture Religion: Religious Colonialism in Welcome to Night Vale: Lady Geek Girl (blog) - "Welcome to Night Vale is one of the few shows in recent memory to address how sinister the effects of religious colonialism can be on people. Religious colonialism is when the invading culture forces its own religious beliefs onto the native peoples it is conquering and simultaneously demonizes and outlaws the native religious beliefs."

fandom:welcometonightvale, topic:religion