Meta Links (4/4/13 - 10/4/13)
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If you want to give feedback, volunteer, link us to meta or ask a question, comment to the volunteers post, the Questions and Things post, the screened post, or PM/email.
General Fandom
Facts in Fiction: Victoria Grossack (blog) - "One of my novels requires a description of a particular mountain in Turkey. My goal is to make my scene reasonably accurate, but so far I've not been able to find anyone who can answer my questions. As I keep searching for someone who knows the answers, I can't help wondering if it's worth it. In general, is it worth making an effort to get your facts right when creating fiction?"
Does Accuracy Matter?: Moira Allen (blog) - "Victoria Grossack raises the question of the importance of accuracy in fiction. Since she closes with an invitation to readers to respond, how can I resist weighing in?"
The Order of Things : Victoria Grossack (blog) - "The sequence of events for your story has several dimensions. One aspect of this means the order of what happens to your characters. But it also means deciding upon the order in which you telleverything to your readers. These are not always the same thing."
Who Speaks? Pointers about Attribution in Dialogue : Victoria Grossack (blog) - "In this month's column I want to cover an aspect of dialogue: how you, as an author, let your readers know which of your characters is doing the speaking. You may consider this aspect trivial, unimportant, nit-picky, even dull. But understanding it and mastering it will contribute significantly to the smoothness and the readability of your work."
Queer Advocacy and Slash Fandom: Then and Now: lierdumoa (tumblr) - "I think slash is a valid and effective form of queer advocacy. Valid because subverting heteronormativity is the fundamental premise of slash. Effective due to slash fandom’s measurable influence on popular media (and therefore on culture and on society), which I will discuss further in the next segment of this essay."
lierdumoa: Queer Advocacy and Slash Fandom: Then and Now: bookshop/Aja (tumblr) - "While I agree with the fundamental baseline argument that slash fanfiction, on a basic level, works to represent queer characters and make the world a queerer place, I have huge problems with the argument this post lays out."
The Banality of Evil (Origin Stories): Ben Adams (blog) - "The problem with these origin stories isn’t just that they’re generally not very good (though they’re not) – they’re also misleading and morally dangerous. They are entirely reductive"
Defending a Dragon: Speaking Out Against the Boycott of Dragon*Con: Wolfen Moondaughter (blog) - "What I do question is encouraging a boycott of the con over Kramer as an effective response to the situation. I'm not even sure I would call it a "reasonable" one, as opposed to just an impassioned one."
On political and value neutral: alliettedb (LJ) - "I’ve been seeing a lot of gender-focused work described as “political”, with a strong negative connotation to the term political–it seems what is meant by “political” isn’t really “relating to the public affairs of one country”, but rather “involved, committed, with a message”. Which in turn is rather puzzling when you think on it–if a work isn’t involved [1], doesn’t have anything to say, then should we still be reading it? And are there really works that don’t have anything to say?"
Oh For Goodness Sake:beccaelizabeth (DW) - "Okay, so it's nice that they're trying, but: BBC writers room blog encourages writing more women, since at the moment stage, TV and film is 2:1 male:female."
Specific Fandoms
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Spike's insanity: it’s not my mind (LJ) - "Someone once said that it would have been interesting if Spike had been sane when he came back with the soul. That it was a bit of a cop-out for him to be crazy, because of course Buffy would feel sorry for him. I have mixed feelings about this. "
Dawn Summers: Fighting for an Alternative Feminist Narrative (3.1): kwritten (LJ) - "Herein lies (the beginning of) a list questions and comments from the discussion that took place after my presentation... or rather, the thinking and speculation that occurred because of some very specific points that were made in the discussion."
Doctor Who
meta: Run, You Clever Boy.... - The Bells of Saint John lonewytch: (LJ) - "Featuring nursery rhymes and Celtic myth, the Question and the Quest, the mirrors and the web, forests and leaves. Oh, and Chairs."
meta: The Soul Is Made of Stories - The Rings of Akhaten...: lonewytch (LJ) - "...in which Who is totally aware of itself as myth, the World Tree is in play, the Leaf is life and death and life again, Clara eats the fruit of the Otherworld and is a contradiction, and the Doctor is a Sun God."
The Leaves and Chairs of Saint John: metatardis(LJ) - "In my previous post, I made the rather bold claim that there's a subversion of traditional religious conceptual frameworks as indicated by the imagery and juxtapositions employed in the text. Here's some additional material in line with such thinking, along with a possibly alternative way to conceiving of such concerns, such as is appropriate for Doctor Who and how it typically conceives of the world."
Doctor Who‘s First Director Doesn’t Like the Doctor Snogging People, Thinks the Show’s Gotten Too Darn Sexy: Rebecca Pahle (The Mary Sue) (blog) - "I’ve never been a fan of the Doctor as a sexual being. He’s a thousand-year-old alien who has adventures across time and space and saves and destroys entire planets and civilizations. Any romances they try to give him just seem out of place to me in how small they are."
Star Wars
Fans Talking Star Wars, Madness, and Fan Fiction: fangirlblog (blog) - "I’ve already shared my perspective on the need to dispel the perception that “Star Wars is for boys.” This week the two remaining female characters, both examples of fierce and well-crafted heroines, fell in the Star Wars “This is Madness” Challenge."
Supernatural
The impact being in a vessel has on relationships: audiograms (AO3) - "An exploration of what the nature of vessels means for relationships with angels, demons and other entities using a vessel. Or, is there a polite way to date using a meat suit?"
But Demons Lie, If in Fact They are Demons: stir of echoes(LJ) - "I’ve been pondering the whole Crowley business ever since his comments to Naomi in ‘Goodbye Stranger’"
See, here’s the thing about Benny and Cas:: casinaviators (tumblr) - "You can’t compare Dean and Benny’s relationship with Dean and Cas’s, the same way that you absolutely cannot pit Cas andSam against one another with respect to their individual dynamics with Dean. It isn’t a matter of who’s better to Dean, or who owes him the most—these are literally such vastly different relationships that any comparison amongst them is rendered completely invalid."
Game of Thrones
Meta Monday: Homosexuality: justadram (tumblr) - "Today’s topic is homosexuality. We have examples of homosexuality in GRRM’s world, although they are inscribed between the lines, such as with Renly Baratheon and Loras Tyrell’s relationship. Jaime’s angry comment is about as blunt a statement about their relationship as we get. One can only presume that it was kept quiet because it was taboo. It should come as no surprise that in Christian medieval Europe homosexuality—or sodomy—was also considered taboo, but how that was expressed differed over time."
Starsky & Hutch
Canon Overview: Stasrky & Hutch:solosundance (DW) - "David Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser, R) and Ken 'Hutch' Hutchinson (David Soul) are a visually pleasing blond/dark cop combo who drive very fast around Bay City in Starsky's red and white striped Torino being unconventional and getting results. Their co-stars were pal, informant, and owner of 'The Pits' bar Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas) and irascible boss Capt. Harold Dobey (Bernie Hamilton)."
Les Miserables
Victor Hugo didn't even need this many words - Thoughts on 'Les Miserables': ladybusiness (DW) - "might we all think more carefully about poverty after being swept along by performances like Hathaway’s? I am going to choose to believe that is possible. Jean Valjean’s journey is transformative and I choose to believe in the signals it sends - that if we’re open to change we can be influenced to change."
Community
Is Community A Postmodern Masterpiece?: pbsideachannel (video) - "The show plays with genre and narrative in such a creative way that it brings to mind the cultural and artistic theory of Postmodernism. Previous TV series have been self-referential and culturally reflective, but none so successfully as Community. The show flips traditional expectations so consistently that it questions their importance in the first place."
Sherlock
Sherlock does not have Asperger’s or Autism, Thanks - From 4 Psychiatrists: wellingtongoose (tumblr) - "Four psychiatrists in the UK specialising in autistic spectrum disorders give their professional conclusions on whether Sherlock has autism or Asperger’s Syndrome:"
Hannibal
Hannibal: "Apéritif": Hello Tailor (blog) - "It must be difficult to avoid going overboard with all that gothic imagery, to be honest. Hannibal's already almost a parody of himself, sitting in a darkened room full of expensive furniture, eating exquisitely flambéed human lungs while the Goldberg Variations play in the background. "
If you want to give feedback, volunteer, link us to meta or ask a question, comment to the volunteers post, the Questions and Things post, the screened post, or PM/email.
General Fandom
Facts in Fiction: Victoria Grossack (blog) - "One of my novels requires a description of a particular mountain in Turkey. My goal is to make my scene reasonably accurate, but so far I've not been able to find anyone who can answer my questions. As I keep searching for someone who knows the answers, I can't help wondering if it's worth it. In general, is it worth making an effort to get your facts right when creating fiction?"
topic: writing, topic: details, topic: accuracy
Does Accuracy Matter?: Moira Allen (blog) - "Victoria Grossack raises the question of the importance of accuracy in fiction. Since she closes with an invitation to readers to respond, how can I resist weighing in?"
topic: writing, topic: details, topic: accuracy
The Order of Things : Victoria Grossack (blog) - "The sequence of events for your story has several dimensions. One aspect of this means the order of what happens to your characters. But it also means deciding upon the order in which you telleverything to your readers. These are not always the same thing."
topic: writing, topic: structure
Who Speaks? Pointers about Attribution in Dialogue : Victoria Grossack (blog) - "In this month's column I want to cover an aspect of dialogue: how you, as an author, let your readers know which of your characters is doing the speaking. You may consider this aspect trivial, unimportant, nit-picky, even dull. But understanding it and mastering it will contribute significantly to the smoothness and the readability of your work."
topic: writing, topic: dialogue
Queer Advocacy and Slash Fandom: Then and Now: lierdumoa (tumblr) - "I think slash is a valid and effective form of queer advocacy. Valid because subverting heteronormativity is the fundamental premise of slash. Effective due to slash fandom’s measurable influence on popular media (and therefore on culture and on society), which I will discuss further in the next segment of this essay."
topic: queer, topic: activism, relationship: slash
lierdumoa: Queer Advocacy and Slash Fandom: Then and Now: bookshop/Aja (tumblr) - "While I agree with the fundamental baseline argument that slash fanfiction, on a basic level, works to represent queer characters and make the world a queerer place, I have huge problems with the argument this post lays out."
topic: queer, topic: activism, relationship: slash
The Banality of Evil (Origin Stories): Ben Adams (blog) - "The problem with these origin stories isn’t just that they’re generally not very good (though they’re not) – they’re also misleading and morally dangerous. They are entirely reductive"
character: villain, topic: prequels
Defending a Dragon: Speaking Out Against the Boycott of Dragon*Con: Wolfen Moondaughter (blog) - "What I do question is encouraging a boycott of the con over Kramer as an effective response to the situation. I'm not even sure I would call it a "reasonable" one, as opposed to just an impassioned one."
topic: conventions, topic: fandom
On political and value neutral: alliettedb (LJ) - "I’ve been seeing a lot of gender-focused work described as “political”, with a strong negative connotation to the term political–it seems what is meant by “political” isn’t really “relating to the public affairs of one country”, but rather “involved, committed, with a message”. Which in turn is rather puzzling when you think on it–if a work isn’t involved [1], doesn’t have anything to say, then should we still be reading it? And are there really works that don’t have anything to say?"
topic: writing, topic: gender
Oh For Goodness Sake:beccaelizabeth (DW) - "Okay, so it's nice that they're trying, but: BBC writers room blog encourages writing more women, since at the moment stage, TV and film is 2:1 male:female."
topic: writing, character: female
Specific Fandoms
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Spike's insanity: it’s not my mind (LJ) - "Someone once said that it would have been interesting if Spike had been sane when he came back with the soul. That it was a bit of a cop-out for him to be crazy, because of course Buffy would feel sorry for him. I have mixed feelings about this. "
fandom: btvs
Dawn Summers: Fighting for an Alternative Feminist Narrative (3.1): kwritten (LJ) - "Herein lies (the beginning of) a list questions and comments from the discussion that took place after my presentation... or rather, the thinking and speculation that occurred because of some very specific points that were made in the discussion."
fandom: btvs, topic: feminism
Doctor Who
meta: Run, You Clever Boy.... - The Bells of Saint John lonewytch: (LJ) - "Featuring nursery rhymes and Celtic myth, the Question and the Quest, the mirrors and the web, forests and leaves. Oh, and Chairs."
fandom: doctor who
meta: The Soul Is Made of Stories - The Rings of Akhaten...: lonewytch (LJ) - "...in which Who is totally aware of itself as myth, the World Tree is in play, the Leaf is life and death and life again, Clara eats the fruit of the Otherworld and is a contradiction, and the Doctor is a Sun God."
fandom: doctor who
The Leaves and Chairs of Saint John: metatardis(LJ) - "In my previous post, I made the rather bold claim that there's a subversion of traditional religious conceptual frameworks as indicated by the imagery and juxtapositions employed in the text. Here's some additional material in line with such thinking, along with a possibly alternative way to conceiving of such concerns, such as is appropriate for Doctor Who and how it typically conceives of the world."
fandom: doctor who
Doctor Who‘s First Director Doesn’t Like the Doctor Snogging People, Thinks the Show’s Gotten Too Darn Sexy: Rebecca Pahle (The Mary Sue) (blog) - "I’ve never been a fan of the Doctor as a sexual being. He’s a thousand-year-old alien who has adventures across time and space and saves and destroys entire planets and civilizations. Any romances they try to give him just seem out of place to me in how small they are."
fandom: doctor who
Star Wars
Fans Talking Star Wars, Madness, and Fan Fiction: fangirlblog (blog) - "I’ve already shared my perspective on the need to dispel the perception that “Star Wars is for boys.” This week the two remaining female characters, both examples of fierce and well-crafted heroines, fell in the Star Wars “This is Madness” Challenge."
fandom: star wars, topic: feminism
Supernatural
The impact being in a vessel has on relationships: audiograms (AO3) - "An exploration of what the nature of vessels means for relationships with angels, demons and other entities using a vessel. Or, is there a polite way to date using a meat suit?"
fandom: supernatural, trope: possession
But Demons Lie, If in Fact They are Demons: stir of echoes(LJ) - "I’ve been pondering the whole Crowley business ever since his comments to Naomi in ‘Goodbye Stranger’"
fandom: supernatural
See, here’s the thing about Benny and Cas:: casinaviators (tumblr) - "You can’t compare Dean and Benny’s relationship with Dean and Cas’s, the same way that you absolutely cannot pit Cas andSam against one another with respect to their individual dynamics with Dean. It isn’t a matter of who’s better to Dean, or who owes him the most—these are literally such vastly different relationships that any comparison amongst them is rendered completely invalid."
fandom: supernatural, fandom: supernatural: castiel, fandom: supernatural: dean
Game of Thrones
Meta Monday: Homosexuality: justadram (tumblr) - "Today’s topic is homosexuality. We have examples of homosexuality in GRRM’s world, although they are inscribed between the lines, such as with Renly Baratheon and Loras Tyrell’s relationship. Jaime’s angry comment is about as blunt a statement about their relationship as we get. One can only presume that it was kept quiet because it was taboo. It should come as no surprise that in Christian medieval Europe homosexuality—or sodomy—was also considered taboo, but how that was expressed differed over time."
fandom: game of thrones, topic: homosexuality
Starsky & Hutch
Canon Overview: Stasrky & Hutch:solosundance (DW) - "David Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser, R) and Ken 'Hutch' Hutchinson (David Soul) are a visually pleasing blond/dark cop combo who drive very fast around Bay City in Starsky's red and white striped Torino being unconventional and getting results. Their co-stars were pal, informant, and owner of 'The Pits' bar Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas) and irascible boss Capt. Harold Dobey (Bernie Hamilton)."
fandom: starsky & Hutch, topic: hurt/comfort, relationship: friendship, relationship: slash
Les Miserables
Victor Hugo didn't even need this many words - Thoughts on 'Les Miserables': ladybusiness (DW) - "might we all think more carefully about poverty after being swept along by performances like Hathaway’s? I am going to choose to believe that is possible. Jean Valjean’s journey is transformative and I choose to believe in the signals it sends - that if we’re open to change we can be influenced to change."
fandom: les mis, topic: poverty, topic: activism
Community
Is Community A Postmodern Masterpiece?: pbsideachannel (video) - "The show plays with genre and narrative in such a creative way that it brings to mind the cultural and artistic theory of Postmodernism. Previous TV series have been self-referential and culturally reflective, but none so successfully as Community. The show flips traditional expectations so consistently that it questions their importance in the first place."
fandom: community, topic: postmodernism
Sherlock
Sherlock does not have Asperger’s or Autism, Thanks - From 4 Psychiatrists: wellingtongoose (tumblr) - "Four psychiatrists in the UK specialising in autistic spectrum disorders give their professional conclusions on whether Sherlock has autism or Asperger’s Syndrome:"
fandom: sherlock, topic: psychiatry
Hannibal
Hannibal: "Apéritif": Hello Tailor (blog) - "It must be difficult to avoid going overboard with all that gothic imagery, to be honest. Hannibal's already almost a parody of himself, sitting in a darkened room full of expensive furniture, eating exquisitely flambéed human lungs while the Goldberg Variations play in the background. "
fandom: hannibal, topic: costumes, topic: design
no subject
Date: 2013-04-13 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-17 03:59 pm (UTC)