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metanews2013-06-26 10:26 am
metanewsmods) wrote in metanews2013-06-26 10:26 am
Entry tags:
- fandom:btvs,
- fandom:comics,
- fandom:gameofthrones,
- fandom:mcu,
- fandom:startrek,
- fandom:starwars,
- fandom:teenwolf,
- topic:consent,
- topic:disability,
- topic:fandom,
- topic:fanfic,
- topic:narrative,
- topic:podfic,
- topic:race,
- topic:religion,
- topic:romance,
- topic:sexism,
- topic:sexuality,
- topic:shipping,
- topic:tagging,
- topic:writing,
- warning:non-con
Meta Links (20/06/13 - 26/06/13)
Notices
From next week our LJ username is going to change to metanews to keep it in line with the dreamwidth comm. As we're renaming, all links should automatically forward you to the new comm.
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
SFF Community, Please Make It So I Can Stop Blogging Angrily About You. slhuang: (blog) - "And now that people are finally rising up; now that enough light is shining on the problem for some actual change to maybe, possibly, happen; now that potential allies are becoming aware of institutional bigotry that they were blind to before; now that the people who have faced professional dismissal over and over because of their race or sex are finally seeing a rally of support on their side—now Bryan Thomas Schmidt is saying, hang on, remember to treat the racists and misogynists with respect?!"
How Not to Have a Conversation: A Case StudyNatalie - Radish Reviews: (blog) - "Here’s a pro tip: if you’re going to call for “civility” (PDF of post at 10:42 PM last night, screenshot of post at 8:00 AM this morning), don’t call those you feel are being uncivil “rabid jungle cats”–that’s a heck of a lot of racism and sexism to pack into three words. It would be impressive if it weren’t so nasty and the exact opposite of the stated goal."
Dealing With It Genevieve Valentine: (blog) - "These are not the assaults, the beatings, the rapes. These are not the traumas. These are small things, mostly; they happen a hundred times a day, you have to deal with them all. To ignore these is to know they’re collecting little victories of privilege, and to wait for “baby” to turn to “bitch” when you don’t answer. To respond almost always risks escalation, telescoping the amount of time you’ll have to deal with it. Either can be dangerous, if the man has a mind. "
Fannish multimodality survey!: jedusaur (DW) - "So we're gonna do this the old-fashioned way, where I ask you questions and you type your answers in a comment. Feel free to answer some questions and not others if you want. Some of this is quantitative data I'm going to summarize in a later post, and some is just qualitative hey-while-I've-got-you-on-the-line stuff I wanted to ask because I'm just interested in people's opinions. On the quantitative ones, feel free to go into qualitative detail if you want--I just need the categorical answers too, for number-crunchin'. And if you want to answer privately, go ahead and PM me your answers."
it's easier to ask forgiveness than... no actually fuck forgiveness too: jedusaur (DW) - " I actually think it's pretty important for podficcers to not have to ask permission to create transformative works. I think not asking permission is a crucial defining characteristic of fandom. "
The literary work of tags: naraht (DW) - "Though I've been musing on the topic for a long time, this post was directly inspired by a comment by thingswithwings in her recent post onnoncon, dubcon and fannish standards"
Fandom as a constant: Eleanor Musgrove (blog) - "In a world that’s always changing, though, it’s sometimes nice to have something solid and unchanging to cling to. For me – and probably others – that’s fandom, at the moment. The thing about being a fan of something is that while it may evolve through various stages – see our Lifecycle of a Fandom series – your favourite series, film or book is likely to continue to exist, and even if you’re a fan of something that does disappear one day, your fandom is unlikely to do the same thing."
More of the Same: Further Convention Tips: Z McAspurren (blog) - "Last issue, we gave a few tips on what to do at a convention. Since then, we’ve been having more thoughts on it, and there are a few more tips we’d like to share with you. "
The “Spotlight Effect” in Media and Fandom: saathi1013 (tumblr) - "The products of fandom can turn out to be more interesting and colorful than canon, certainly, but nine times out of ten fandom reflects what it sees. [...] most of the time fandom reflects the same spotlight that the media does. There is a hyperfocus on white cis het males, and while slash can add ‘queerness’ where there was none in the original text, fandom often seems remarkably uncreative when it comes to ‘shifting the spotlight’ to other characters."
Putting Relationships Into Binary Boxes: melannen (DW) - "Here's the background: I'm a tag wrangler on the Archive of Our Own. One of the things I'm supposed to do as a tag wrangler is take the Relationship tags users put on their stories, and assign them to either an "&" 'ship tag or a "/" ship tag."
Specific Fandoms
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Buffy Rewatch: Seeing Red: fozmeadows: (blog) - "I’ve seen commentary to the effect that, in order for Spike to have the mental break-slash-epiphany that leads to him getting his soul back, it would’ve been enough if he’d tried to kill Buffy, drain her, or turn her – anything but an attempted rape. And on one level, I agree with that wholly. Such an alternate scene might well have lacked the horrific, oh-god-no, no factor the existing one inspires, but that’s kind of the point: did we really need to go there?"
Flaws in the Narrativ Structure or How it Can Fail--as seen in BTVS : shadowkat67(LJ) - "The trick to making characters who do nasty things interesting or relateable is by examining their actions and exploring a broad and often contradictory set of actions. And obviously Whedon did, to an extent, as permitted by the limitations of a 22 episode network tv show that he had to churn out weekly with little prep time."
Dark Crystal
Jim Henson Company wants to buy your "Dark Crystal" fanfiction Aja Romano - Daily Dot: (blog) - "...there are some red flags, sadly familiar ones to fans who've seen similar contests like this one from other corporations looking to engage fans while also pilfering their creativity. Participating in the contest requires you to state that your work is fully derived from the Dark Crystal film, and give up any and all rights to your story. This holds even though the contest's own emphasis on a prequel setting, original characters, and new plots means that the best entries will almost certainly be arguably transformative works over which the author should legally be allowed to maintain their own copyright."
DC Comics Films, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Untitled: helshades (tumblr) - "But frankly, my biggest issue with DC has always been DC. They conceive all their superheroes as gods - big, mighty, messianic figures, they fight for you because you are too weak, and this is why they are entitled to lead you, show you the way into a better future as the great big Jesus-like creatures that they are."
‘Man Of Steel’ And How Superheroes’ Girlfriends Burned Me Out On Love StoriesAlyssa Rosenberg - ThinkProgress: (blog) - "Don’t any of these guys have male friends who are non-employees, unlike Happy and Alfred, with whom they could shoot the breeze or work through a few more of their issues? What about women friends or coworkers who aren’t there simply to be love interests? That might be a way for the Marvel universe, at least, to make use of the dramatically under-utilized Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill? If superheroes are supposed to be possessed of tremendous will, couldn’t they take care of some of the self-actualization their own selves?"
Game of Thrones
Meta Monday: Religion: justadram (tumblr) - "I’ve been putting off doing a meta on the Religion, because I couldn’t think of a real historical inspiration GRRM might be drawing on, but then it was pointed out to me that he claims Zoroastrianism and the Cathars as his inspiration. See the interview here. I’ll admit, I saw red a bit—perhaps appropriate given the topic."
There are No True Knights: Brienne of Tarth: Rhiannon (blog) - "Brienne of Tarth is the only living character who values honor above all else, who is determined to keep all her vows, who respects life and wants to protect the weak."
Likeable vs Hateable or Masculine vs Feminine: Rhiannon (blog) - "Entertainment Weekly just published its “likeability index,” ranking characters on how “likeability” and “hateability,” along with how “good” or “bad” they are. Unsurprisingly, it’s a bit rubbish. At least, in the Game of Thrones department. "
Lord of the Rings
In Search of a Better George RR Martin Comparison. : TheOneRing.net (blog) - "Few things reflexively irk me as much as a Tolkien comparison.
Okay, that’s a bit of hyperbole. But there is an underlying truth — they are irritating. Why? Because anyone saying “X is the new Tolkien” or “Y is a masterpiece worthy of Tolkien” is, frankly, almost certainly full of it."
Marvel Cinematic Universe
Fear and greed in the face of the unknown: The X-Men and Civil Rights Ben Adams - Overthinking It: (blog) - "There’s a strong case to be made that the first instinct on encountering the unknown isn’t to kill or destroy it – it’s to exploit it. Humans aren’t known for their restraint in this regard. In the words of Ian Malcolm, we’re generally more interested in figuring out if we could than stopping to ask if we should."
The Sentinel
Untitled: eternityinalake (tumblr) - "As someone who has both watched ‘The Sentinel’ and read a lot of Sentinel AU fics, I find it interesting how the AU has evolved away from the canon: (A discussion of canon vs fanon follows)"
Stargate SG1
A question for Jack/Sam and gen fans of SG-1: princessofgeeks (DW) - "Do you know of some fic I could read for research purposes that deals specifically with the aftermath of "Divide and Conquer" in terms of what the revelations in that episode did to their working relationship?"
Star Trek
Star Trek Into Darkness--they stole from Carey's novels again!: beatrice_otter (DW) - "Have just gotten back from seeing the movie, and I think that the writers were at it again, stealing things from old classic trek novels."
Star Wars
So What the Heck are Midi-Chlorians?: JW Rinzler (blog) - "When Episode I came out a few people were upset by the role midi-chlorians played in the Force — particularly when a drop of Anakin’s blood revealed an unusually high number of them in his system."
Why Star Wars Still Matters: Scott Brady (blog) - "In a recent piece for the Chicago Tribune, columnist Steve Johnson claims that Star Wars is insubstantial. That its time has passed. That it should disappear from our culture. Pardon my French, but his opinions are pas très bonnes."
Teen Wolf
Peter Hale isn’t Hades, he’s Dionysus: keriarentikai (tumblr) - "If we’re gonna make up classical parallels, let’s try this one instead - if there’s any Greek god that Peter Hale parallels, it’s Dionysus. He’s the deity who drives people insane and comes back from the dead. "
Untitled : dogunderwater (tumblr) - "The thing about Erica is that yes, when we meet her, she has epilepsy. And epilepsy sucks, epilepsy is a terrible disease, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Erica wanting a cure for it, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Erica being willing to make a deal with Derek in order to get a cure for it.
The problem is the way the storyline basically only treats her as an interesting, worthwhile character because Erica’s epilepsy is cured."
Scott McCall and the power of names - Teen Wolf Meta: shipsanddip (tumblr) - "Speculation as to the meaning of this statement, “The man he’ll become,” has been rife and I’ve seen a lot of people jump immediately to a Chosen One narrative. Some are feeling positive about this potential development while others have expressed exasperation and disappointment over unimaginative writing. I think I’ve figured out a more interesting theory as to what exactly The Girl meant and what’s in store for Scott."
Trigun, Brothers Karamazov
Modern-Day Saints: Trigun and The Brothers KaramazovArwen Spicer - Overthinking It: (blog) - "But Trigun is more than a madcap action series. Its pop medium notwithstanding, it explores the human condition like high literature. Most stories engage with moral questions on some level. But Trigun’s central theme is the nature of morality itself. It asks, “What does it take to live a truly good life?”"
From next week our LJ username is going to change to metanews to keep it in line with the dreamwidth comm. As we're renaming, all links should automatically forward you to the new comm.
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
SFF Community, Please Make It So I Can Stop Blogging Angrily About You. slhuang: (blog) - "And now that people are finally rising up; now that enough light is shining on the problem for some actual change to maybe, possibly, happen; now that potential allies are becoming aware of institutional bigotry that they were blind to before; now that the people who have faced professional dismissal over and over because of their race or sex are finally seeing a rally of support on their side—now Bryan Thomas Schmidt is saying, hang on, remember to treat the racists and misogynists with respect?!"
topic: SFWA, topic: sexism, topic: racism
How Not to Have a Conversation: A Case StudyNatalie - Radish Reviews: (blog) - "Here’s a pro tip: if you’re going to call for “civility” (PDF of post at 10:42 PM last night, screenshot of post at 8:00 AM this morning), don’t call those you feel are being uncivil “rabid jungle cats”–that’s a heck of a lot of racism and sexism to pack into three words. It would be impressive if it weren’t so nasty and the exact opposite of the stated goal."
topic: SFWA, topic: sexism, topic: racism
Dealing With It Genevieve Valentine: (blog) - "These are not the assaults, the beatings, the rapes. These are not the traumas. These are small things, mostly; they happen a hundred times a day, you have to deal with them all. To ignore these is to know they’re collecting little victories of privilege, and to wait for “baby” to turn to “bitch” when you don’t answer. To respond almost always risks escalation, telescoping the amount of time you’ll have to deal with it. Either can be dangerous, if the man has a mind. "
topic: SFWA, topic: sexism
Fannish multimodality survey!: jedusaur (DW) - "So we're gonna do this the old-fashioned way, where I ask you questions and you type your answers in a comment. Feel free to answer some questions and not others if you want. Some of this is quantitative data I'm going to summarize in a later post, and some is just qualitative hey-while-I've-got-you-on-the-line stuff I wanted to ask because I'm just interested in people's opinions. On the quantitative ones, feel free to go into qualitative detail if you want--I just need the categorical answers too, for number-crunchin'. And if you want to answer privately, go ahead and PM me your answers."
topic: poll, topic: fandom
it's easier to ask forgiveness than... no actually fuck forgiveness too: jedusaur (DW) - " I actually think it's pretty important for podficcers to not have to ask permission to create transformative works. I think not asking permission is a crucial defining characteristic of fandom. "
topic: fandom, topic: fanfic, topic: podfic
The literary work of tags: naraht (DW) - "Though I've been musing on the topic for a long time, this post was directly inspired by a comment by thingswithwings in her recent post onnoncon, dubcon and fannish standards"
topic: consent issues, topic: tagging
Fandom as a constant: Eleanor Musgrove (blog) - "In a world that’s always changing, though, it’s sometimes nice to have something solid and unchanging to cling to. For me – and probably others – that’s fandom, at the moment. The thing about being a fan of something is that while it may evolve through various stages – see our Lifecycle of a Fandom series – your favourite series, film or book is likely to continue to exist, and even if you’re a fan of something that does disappear one day, your fandom is unlikely to do the same thing."
topic: fandom
More of the Same: Further Convention Tips: Z McAspurren (blog) - "Last issue, we gave a few tips on what to do at a convention. Since then, we’ve been having more thoughts on it, and there are a few more tips we’d like to share with you. "
topic: fandom, topic: conventions
The “Spotlight Effect” in Media and Fandom: saathi1013 (tumblr) - "The products of fandom can turn out to be more interesting and colorful than canon, certainly, but nine times out of ten fandom reflects what it sees. [...] most of the time fandom reflects the same spotlight that the media does. There is a hyperfocus on white cis het males, and while slash can add ‘queerness’ where there was none in the original text, fandom often seems remarkably uncreative when it comes to ‘shifting the spotlight’ to other characters."
topic: fandom
Putting Relationships Into Binary Boxes: melannen (DW) - "Here's the background: I'm a tag wrangler on the Archive of Our Own. One of the things I'm supposed to do as a tag wrangler is take the Relationship tags users put on their stories, and assign them to either an "&" 'ship tag or a "/" ship tag."
topic: fiction, topic: gen, topic: sexuality, topic: shipping, topic: slash
Specific Fandoms
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Buffy Rewatch: Seeing Red: fozmeadows: (blog) - "I’ve seen commentary to the effect that, in order for Spike to have the mental break-slash-epiphany that leads to him getting his soul back, it would’ve been enough if he’d tried to kill Buffy, drain her, or turn her – anything but an attempted rape. And on one level, I agree with that wholly. Such an alternate scene might well have lacked the horrific, oh-god-no, no factor the existing one inspires, but that’s kind of the point: did we really need to go there?"
fandom: btvs, topic: consent issues, warning: rape/non-con
Flaws in the Narrativ Structure or How it Can Fail--as seen in BTVS : shadowkat67(LJ) - "The trick to making characters who do nasty things interesting or relateable is by examining their actions and exploring a broad and often contradictory set of actions. And obviously Whedon did, to an extent, as permitted by the limitations of a 22 episode network tv show that he had to churn out weekly with little prep time."
fandom: btvs, topic: narrative
Dark Crystal
Jim Henson Company wants to buy your "Dark Crystal" fanfiction Aja Romano - Daily Dot: (blog) - "...there are some red flags, sadly familiar ones to fans who've seen similar contests like this one from other corporations looking to engage fans while also pilfering their creativity. Participating in the contest requires you to state that your work is fully derived from the Dark Crystal film, and give up any and all rights to your story. This holds even though the contest's own emphasis on a prequel setting, original characters, and new plots means that the best entries will almost certainly be arguably transformative works over which the author should legally be allowed to maintain their own copyright."
fandom: dark crystal, topic: fanfiction
DC Comics Films, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Untitled: helshades (tumblr) - "But frankly, my biggest issue with DC has always been DC. They conceive all their superheroes as gods - big, mighty, messianic figures, they fight for you because you are too weak, and this is why they are entitled to lead you, show you the way into a better future as the great big Jesus-like creatures that they are."
fandom: mcu, fandom: dc, fandom: superman, fandom: batman, fandom: avengers, fandom: comics, topic: character
‘Man Of Steel’ And How Superheroes’ Girlfriends Burned Me Out On Love StoriesAlyssa Rosenberg - ThinkProgress: (blog) - "Don’t any of these guys have male friends who are non-employees, unlike Happy and Alfred, with whom they could shoot the breeze or work through a few more of their issues? What about women friends or coworkers who aren’t there simply to be love interests? That might be a way for the Marvel universe, at least, to make use of the dramatically under-utilized Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill? If superheroes are supposed to be possessed of tremendous will, couldn’t they take care of some of the self-actualization their own selves?"
fandom: DCCF, fandom: MCU, topic: romance
Game of Thrones
Meta Monday: Religion: justadram (tumblr) - "I’ve been putting off doing a meta on the Religion, because I couldn’t think of a real historical inspiration GRRM might be drawing on, but then it was pointed out to me that he claims Zoroastrianism and the Cathars as his inspiration. See the interview here. I’ll admit, I saw red a bit—perhaps appropriate given the topic."
fandom: game of thrones, topic: religion
There are No True Knights: Brienne of Tarth: Rhiannon (blog) - "Brienne of Tarth is the only living character who values honor above all else, who is determined to keep all her vows, who respects life and wants to protect the weak."
fandom: game of thrones, character: female
Likeable vs Hateable or Masculine vs Feminine: Rhiannon (blog) - "Entertainment Weekly just published its “likeability index,” ranking characters on how “likeability” and “hateability,” along with how “good” or “bad” they are. Unsurprisingly, it’s a bit rubbish. At least, in the Game of Thrones department. "
fandom: game of thrones, character: male, character: female
Lord of the Rings
In Search of a Better George RR Martin Comparison. : TheOneRing.net (blog) - "Few things reflexively irk me as much as a Tolkien comparison.
Okay, that’s a bit of hyperbole. But there is an underlying truth — they are irritating. Why? Because anyone saying “X is the new Tolkien” or “Y is a masterpiece worthy of Tolkien” is, frankly, almost certainly full of it."
fandom: lotr, topic: writing
Marvel Cinematic Universe
Fear and greed in the face of the unknown: The X-Men and Civil Rights Ben Adams - Overthinking It: (blog) - "There’s a strong case to be made that the first instinct on encountering the unknown isn’t to kill or destroy it – it’s to exploit it. Humans aren’t known for their restraint in this regard. In the words of Ian Malcolm, we’re generally more interested in figuring out if we could than stopping to ask if we should."
fandom: MCU, topic: civil rights, topic: race
The Sentinel
Untitled: eternityinalake (tumblr) - "As someone who has both watched ‘The Sentinel’ and read a lot of Sentinel AU fics, I find it interesting how the AU has evolved away from the canon: (A discussion of canon vs fanon follows)"
fandom: the sentinel, topic: fanon, topic: canon
Stargate SG1
A question for Jack/Sam and gen fans of SG-1: princessofgeeks (DW) - "Do you know of some fic I could read for research purposes that deals specifically with the aftermath of "Divide and Conquer" in terms of what the revelations in that episode did to their working relationship?"
fandom: stargate
Star Trek
Star Trek Into Darkness--they stole from Carey's novels again!: beatrice_otter (DW) - "Have just gotten back from seeing the movie, and I think that the writers were at it again, stealing things from old classic trek novels."
fandom: star trek
Star Wars
So What the Heck are Midi-Chlorians?: JW Rinzler (blog) - "When Episode I came out a few people were upset by the role midi-chlorians played in the Force — particularly when a drop of Anakin’s blood revealed an unusually high number of them in his system."
fandom: star wars
Why Star Wars Still Matters: Scott Brady (blog) - "In a recent piece for the Chicago Tribune, columnist Steve Johnson claims that Star Wars is insubstantial. That its time has passed. That it should disappear from our culture. Pardon my French, but his opinions are pas très bonnes."
fandom: star wars, topic: fandom
Teen Wolf
Peter Hale isn’t Hades, he’s Dionysus: keriarentikai (tumblr) - "If we’re gonna make up classical parallels, let’s try this one instead - if there’s any Greek god that Peter Hale parallels, it’s Dionysus. He’s the deity who drives people insane and comes back from the dead. "
fandom: teen wolf, topic: myths
Untitled : dogunderwater (tumblr) - "The thing about Erica is that yes, when we meet her, she has epilepsy. And epilepsy sucks, epilepsy is a terrible disease, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Erica wanting a cure for it, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Erica being willing to make a deal with Derek in order to get a cure for it.
The problem is the way the storyline basically only treats her as an interesting, worthwhile character because Erica’s epilepsy is cured."
fandom: teen wolf, topic: disability
Scott McCall and the power of names - Teen Wolf Meta: shipsanddip (tumblr) - "Speculation as to the meaning of this statement, “The man he’ll become,” has been rife and I’ve seen a lot of people jump immediately to a Chosen One narrative. Some are feeling positive about this potential development while others have expressed exasperation and disappointment over unimaginative writing. I think I’ve figured out a more interesting theory as to what exactly The Girl meant and what’s in store for Scott."
fandom: teen wolf
Trigun, Brothers Karamazov
Modern-Day Saints: Trigun and The Brothers KaramazovArwen Spicer - Overthinking It: (blog) - "But Trigun is more than a madcap action series. Its pop medium notwithstanding, it explores the human condition like high literature. Most stories engage with moral questions on some level. But Trigun’s central theme is the nature of morality itself. It asks, “What does it take to live a truly good life?”"
fandom: trigun, fandom: brothers karamazov