This Week in Meta

A mini issue today!

Abigail Nussbaum posted It's Easy to Be a Saint in Paradise: Thoughts on The Good Place's Third Season: "All of which is to say that it can be a bit intimidating to express criticism or skepticism about The Good Place's worldbuilding, because odds are that your reaction is the point, all the way back to "wait, the afterlife in this show doesn't make any sense" in the first season. Nevertheless, I find myself troubled by some of the conclusions the show reaches in its third season and where it proceeds from them."

Clare McBride for SyFy Wire posted How genre has failed and served queer representation: "It’s been a slow, uphill progression for queer representation in genre literature. Genre television and genre film lag a little behind genre literature, but we have more options than ever. But the very variety we have lays bare the two major problems facing queer representation in genre fiction: the limitations of metaphor and the limitations of accessibility."

itsladykit posted Have you ever changed the direction of a fic you were writing based off of audience reaction to a part?: "Accepting criticism from trusted sources is an important part of the creative process, especially when producing a commercial product. But the key phrase there would be “trusted sources”."

thisweekmeta collects links of fandom meta and discussions from all over the web, and welcomes submissions from readers. If you know of an excellent fandom discussion post that we've missed, whether new or old, please feel free to leave a comment on this newest issue or email the editor.

The FAQ can be found here, and our editorial guidelines can be found here. Questions, concerns, and feedback are all welcomed.

Happy Sunday! I'm trying really hard to stick to the tentative posting schedule, which at the moment is Sundays, Wednesdays, and the occasional Friday.

Thank you to everyone who suggested links over the last few issues! I'm particularly thankful for links of off-Dreamwidth meta. I haven't been finding as much new stuff on Tumblr/Pillowfort/etc., suprisingly; if you happen to run into anything good, please send it along for possible inclusion in a future issue. ♥

cimorene posted Rivers of London: shipping in canon and fanon (the role of fan favorites): "This fandom seems like a perfect example to me of that situation where people like the woman in a f/m relationship - I'd bet that probably everybody who ships the protagonist with Nightingale instead (or in addition but not in OT3, as in... will read both/either) likes her - but are more interested in the other ship because of (1) interest in the other character (and a desire to put that character in a pairing) and (2) screentime and story weight devoted to the relationship."

Claire Rousseau (Youtube) posted Hugo Awards Nominations 101 - Who, What & How Can You Nominate?: "Time for a deep dive into the hugo Awards nomination process!!"

jadislefeu posted On setting up Calibre for fanfic: "was asked on Discord for a tutorial about using Calibre for fanfic in general! Please feel welcome to share or link this wherever, because it was more work than I realized it would be when I started and I want it to be useful to people."

lovetincture posted The Ethics of Monetizing Fanworks: "Leaving aside legality, because I think that’s already been discussed by people who are much, much smarter than I am, my primary concern about the monetization of fanworks is ethics."

naye posted Guardian meta-meta: Censorship and Homosexuality in China: "However, given the political situation in the People's Republic of China, every interview touching on sensitive subjects (and homosexuality is absolutely a sensitive subject) must out of necessity come with an aspect of performance, as there are things you absolutely cannot say. My thoughts on that kind of spiralled out of control, and so here's a long meta (meta-meta?) about Guardian, censorship and homosexuality in the PRC."

nostalgia posted It's A Topic ("You wore your soldier-hat!"): "I come at this mostly from Dr Whom fandom, which has been monetising fandom in one way or another since at least the 90s. (It use to be fairly easy to find old bits of fic by NA/EDA/BF writers online, and some of it's probably still there.) I once got into a fight on Outpost Gallifrey because I called the tie-in books "published fanfic" and one of the authors assumed I meant "they're shit, because all fanfic is shit.""

Rowan Ellis (Youtube) posted The Evolution Of Queerbaiting: From Queercoding to Queercatching: "From The Hays Code to the new phenomenon of "queercatching" - here is the history of queerbaiting. Including all your favourite like every Disney villain ever, Destiel, Valkyrie, Johnlock, Sterek, Le Fou, Sulu, the Yellow Power Ranger, and more!"

Flashback - April 1, 2015

A nostalgic look at LiveJournal:

Lindsay Gates-Markel for The Toast posted In Celebration of Old-School LiveJournal: "I can’t shake the memory that writing was easy in the LiveJournal days; I remember sitting at that computer desk in my childhood home, writing about my innermost joys, and pausing at the keyboard, my fingers poised over the keys. I shut my eyes and waited, knowing the next words would come soon—and they always did. Whether they came only because I believed they would, or vice versa, I still don’t know. But in the same way I knew the words would come, I knew that life would always be good to me, that its riches would always be clear to me; or at least that I could be “poet enough” to seek them out."

thisweekmeta collects links of fandom meta and discussions from all over the web, and welcomes submissions from readers. If you know of an excellent fandom discussion post that we've missed, whether new or old, please feel free to leave a comment on this newest issue or email the editor.

The FAQ can be found here, and our editorial guidelines can be found here. Questions, concerns, and feedback are all welcomed.

Hello, happy Sunday, here's some links, and oh btw: we've passed 600 subscribers (+42 since the last issue).

\o/

akamine_chan posted signal boost: on fandom and the "culture of selling": "There's the fact that for a long time, selling of fanworks was a big no-no because we were trying to stay under the radar and not attract the attention of copyright holders. And the fact that for years, fannish endeavors were considered frivolous and valueless."

elle_em posted a discussion about embarrassing fanfic: "So tell me, what's the most embarrassing piece of fanfiction you will COURAGEOUSLY ADMIT to writing?? Come on, BE BRAVE LIKE THE TROOPS."

Elizabeth Minkel for Medium posted “You’re Gonna Love This Franchise:” Fandom, corporate media, and San Diego Comic-Con: "I have only known this corporate behemoth, and for me, the event in its current form is what it is: a specific shape, only growing outwards rather than truly abandoning any one of its components, a sort of massive snowball picking up more and more pop culture as it hurtles down the mountain."

freedom-of-fanfic posted Any idea why the MST virtually disappeared from fandom?: "While some fics that were MST’ed were written for the express purpose of being MST’ed, or submitted for MSTing, many were not, and the practice was incredibly cruel. You can imagine how horrible it would be to find your fic had been plagiarized by another author for the express purpose of making fun of how bad the fic was."

sciatrix posted what's sovereignty worth to me, anyway?: "I think, though, that I'm still uneasy, and I'm fundamentally uneasy because to me what I am hearing echoed from the various Fediverse/p2p/Mastodon schools of How Fandom Should Do Next is that the future of fandom should be decentralized and spread around many small communities, each maintained and monitored by a few moderators. Like a set of fiefdoms, but administered without hereditary rule, with mobile users who can transfer allegiances from one fiefdom to another quickly--at least in theory."

tammaiya for disgracetoscholars posted In the Weeds: Same-Sex Subtext in Mainstream Media (Part One) : "This feature is specifically examining quasi-canon subtextual/implied same-sex relationships in popular East Asian media, particularly in relation to (1) the reasons why creators often leave it to the audience to read between the lines rather than outright confirm, and (2) the signs that imply that kind of authorial intent."

Flashback - January 2001

This piece of meta was written before the prevalence of things like coffee shop AUs, but it's still great because it's not really about SPECIFIC AUs. Instead, really digs down deep into WHAT makes an AU interesting/successful/etc., and why some AU fanfics work better than others.

ratcreature posted How to construct Alternate Universes that work as fanfic: "There are AUs which change very little, say the profession of the main characters, and don't work as fanfic anymore, whereas there are others, which change the species of the same characters (and with it a whole lot of other things among those the profession) and succeed as fanfic, and are perfectly recognizable as such to everybody who knows the source. Why does this happen? Are these rare exceptions, only due to totally exceptional writing? I don't think so."

[Linked with permission from Original Poster.]

thisweekmeta collects links of fandom meta and discussions from all over the web, and welcomes submissions from readers. If you know of an excellent fandom discussion post that we've missed, whether new or old, please feel free to leave a comment on this newest issue or email the editor.

The FAQ can be found here, and our editorial guidelines can be found here. Questions, concerns, and feedback are all welcomed.

Continuing to tweak some small things while the newsletter is still young: new title format! Should make things a little clearer when linking/using astolat's reblog bookmarklet/on the reading page. Hopefully?

A reminder that the content poll will be open through the end of the weekend. Please also check out the comments, as there's some good discussion!

Eldritch Hat (Medium) posted Fandom-Plus: Metacommentary on Terrible Things Read with Enthusiasm: "There is a certain allure when it comes to being a big fan of something that most people you meet have never heard of and, moreover, seems to appeal to your sensibilities specifically. It is a feeling much like keeping a shared secret, becoming part of a hidden society with in jokes and discord servers that only some are privy to."

Alejandra for The Fandomentals posted Brood and the Sunshine: "You know them.

One is sad and melancholy, possibly grumpy and dry, or maybe even serious and sullen. The other is positive, maybe cheery and possibly even perky."

fansplaining posted Episode 86: The Money Question: "In Episode 86, “The Money Question,” Flourish and Elizabeth complete their inadvertent DISCOURSE TRILOGY with a conversation about the monetization of fanfiction." Transcript available.

fozmeadows posted fandom purity theory: "Theory: fandom drama is inversely proportional to the perceived purity of the original media. Purity in this context is measured by a combination of innocent characters, childlike associations and/or a younger intended audience, and how hashtag Representational - in the sense of being elevated as Perfect And Above Criticism because the creators make a genuine, positive effort towards diversity* - the material is. The more “pure” the source material is seen as being, the uglier the fandom debates surrounding it."

melannen posted on swindles and fandoms: "So I'm still way more worried about predatory publishers going 'ooh, girls are selling fanfic now! Our fandom market's not limited to boys with no social support and WoW-with-the-numbers-filed-off epics!' or about homegrown swindles and for-pay fanfic sites than I am about people using crowdfunding or commissions to fill out that last couple of hundred dollars of rent."

Mrs. Potato Head (Fanlore editor) posted How do I decide to make page for meta?: "Some topics, such as Mary Sue, m/m slash, femslash, concrit, copyright and fair use, rpf are ones that I collect (the older the better) so I can provide evidence of changing views and evolving language. Even if some of these early essays are short and may seem redundant or simplistic to fans today, I feel that it is important to have evidence of where things began and how fans talked about it."

Flashback - June 18, 2013

Building onto other links regarding past and present discussions of fandom, privacy, and community etiquette, this flashback meta covers the timeline of pre-internet fanworks (particularly fanzines) being put online, starting in the late 1990s.

morgandawn posted The Brick In The Wall Theory: "I have a theory about fandom and visibility: the brick in the wall theory. But instead of adding bricks to build a privacy wall, online life is more like removing bricks from the privacy wall. At least that is the case for many of the pre-Internet fans."

[Linked with permission from Original Poster.]

thisweekmeta collects links of fandom meta and discussions from all over the web, and welcomes submissions from readers. If you know of an excellent fandom discussion post that we've missed, whether new or old, please feel free to leave a comment on this newest issue or email the editor.

The FAQ can be found here, and our editorial guidelines can be found here. Questions, concerns, and feedback are all welcomed.

Thank you all for your responses in the twm content poll! There's a lot of good discussion going on in the comments (as always), so please go check them out. If you'd rather PM me your thoughts instead, that's totally fine. You can also post anonymously if you're not comfortable attaching a username to your comment.

I'll leave the poll up through next weekend and then post the results.

For now, the next issue! We have a good mix of general meta, fandom-specific meta, and a con report-- which, although not strictly META, falls under the "fan experiences" part of the guidelines. I've always been interested in reading con reports, mostly because I don't get to go to nearly as many cons as I'd like, and when I DO go, I'm too nervous to really enjoy myself. Con reports offer a view into fen experiences off the internet, which is a nice change.

chaoticcliche posted Steven Universe and the Era of Hopepunk: "I feel like Steven Universe fits under the Hopepunk umbrella (Can we call it a genre? I feel like it would work better as a genre). Despite it's very punk themes of queerness, racial identity, gender identity, ability, otherness, and rebellion, it presents these things on a plate of sunlight and fluff. An important part of any balanced punk diet if you wanna survive out here, don't get me wrong, but nothing someone can sustain themselves on."

cassini posted Have a Healthy Wank: "honestly, my friends, my fellow soldiers on this front line of the bullshitstorm of existence, if your shipping is about 'goals', your personal hopes and dreams, some reflection of your emotional desires and ethics, if shipping is the way you learn about relationships, that's cool. it's sweet, fine, fuckin dandy. you do what makes you feel happy because everything sucks. but come on, don't make judgements on people who are doing their ships differently."

cuttimecomic posted on the difficulties of building fandoms for original works: "I see ppl bitter that their original characters don't get as much attention or exposure. That's because ppl can't connect to what they don't know. YOU have to create that base. Don't forget fandoms are born from someone else's persistence and dedication to their personal works."

portraitoftheoddity posted “This made me uncomfortable” =/= “this harmed me.”: "I’m gonna make the radical hot take here that discomfort can be good. Not all discomfort is harm."

rhodanum posted of fandoms and complete shitshows: "As someone who's been involved with fandoms for twenty years now, since the pre-LJ era, one of the most baffling and actively enraging developments in recent times has been the sharp rise of content-policing from within fandom itself, rather than something caused by the intervention of an outside entity (as was the case with the fundamentalist Christian group whose caterwauling kicked off Strikethrough)."

slipjig3 posted Arisia 2019 Wrap-Up: Still Too Tired to Come Up with a Witty Subtitle: "Another Arisia has come, and another Arisia has gone, huzzah, forsooth and yea verily. And since my foray into long-form blogging has returned, so have many of my old blogging traditions, including the annual Cleverly Formatted Arisia Wrap-Up post."

sylvaine posted Linking to fanworks, and meta specifically: "I always felt that meta, like any other fanwork, was free to link to (assuming unlocked post), but there's a lot of discussion in [community profile] thisweekmeta that suggests otherwise. And I can see why! Generally speaking, meta brings a lot more discussion and potential wank with it than fictional fanworks."

yvannairie posted Analysing negative feelings at their root must have some value: "So I know hating characters because they come "in the way" of your ship is bad, but I wish that was something we could at least talk about, you know?"

thisweekmeta collects links of fandom meta and discussions from all over the web, and welcomes submissions from readers. If you know of an excellent fandom discussion post that we've missed, whether new or old, please feel free to leave a comment on this newest issue or email the editor.

The FAQ can be found here, and our editorial guidelines can be found here. Questions, concerns, and feedback are all welcomed.

I'm sure you all know this already, but: Always check the comments on a thing! A discussion post is just the starting point-- comments are the continuation and often end up even more interesting than the original post.

And speaking of comments: you are totally welcome to leave any kind of comment here. A response to a link, an idea for a new link, a tip or question about the newsletter-- anything goes.

Onto the issue!

thisweekmeta collects links of fandom meta and discussions from all over the web, and welcomes submissions from readers. If you know of an excellent fandom discussion post that we've missed, whether new or old, please feel free to leave a comment on this newest issue or email the editor.

The FAQ can be found here, and our editorial guidelines can be found here. Questions, concerns, and feedback are all welcomed.

Newer Stuff

cfiesler posted How does new canon impact fanfiction production?: "In looking at the relationship between two of the questions - how often respondents write fanfiction and when they are most likely to write fanfiction - we see that people who write fanfiction more often are less impacted by new canon, and people who write less frequently are more likely to be inspired by new canon."

fairestcat posted On Fandom and the "culture of selling": "Does joining someone's Patreon or tipping them on Ko-Fi or purchasing a fanwork from them change that relationship? Probably. But not as much as some old-school fans seem to think."

quiltingsarah (Reddit) posted The olden days of fanfiction-share your memories: "The first sort of fanfic I read was in a magazine that had a story in installments I got at a Doctor Who convention in the early 1980's. it was a Star Trek/Who xo, never did read the end of it because I only found the first 2. So I'd go to cons, pick up the occasional zine."

quinfirefrorefiddle posted Fandom History- A Quick Rundown: "There are certain events, trends, or facts in fandom that were important enough, or in some cases just weird enough, that I'm always kind of surprised when I meet a fan who hasn't heard of them. Totally unfair, of course, I learn about fandom history I've never heard of before all the time."

Rhodanum (Pillowfort) posted THE PREQUEL TRILOGY IN THE 2000s -- A WOMAN-RUN STAR WARS FANDOM: "One thing that gets lost when discussing the history of Star Wars is how heavily female-dominated the fandom for the Prequel Trilogy was, particularly in the 2000s. Fan-site after fan-site, fan-shrine after fan-shrine, the userbases of which were overwhelmingly girls and women."

Steven T. Wright for Ars Technica posted “The Linux of social media”—How LiveJournal pioneered (then lost) blogging: "Growing up on the Web at the dawn of the social media age (circa 2007), it felt like all the connectivity-obsessed sites forming the burgeoning core of the new Internet were haunted by a faded spectre called LiveJournal. As a teen, I never actually knew anyone who had one, but I heard whispers and rumors about drama on the service all the time."

Flashback - be back soon.

Link taken down! I'll put a new one up later today. In consideration of the link owner, I have also screened comments that a) had the link or a related one, b) a Google-able quote, c) link owner's name.

Hello all! Wow, this has been some week. The newsletter opened on Sunday 1/20/19, and as of today, Thursday 1/24/19, there are 443 subscribers. That's like 100 new subs a day! Thank you all so much for your interest in the newsletter; I hope we'll have many, many posts filled with interesting links for the next [insert length of time here]. ♥

Having said that, I took some time over the last two/three days and developed these newsletter guidelines. I'd always meant to flesh out the guiding principles of the newsletter, but let my enthusiasm get ahead of me and just went for newsletter creation without being 100% sure about the rest. There were also some concerns brought up in the FAQ post which I wanted to respond to.

This is mostly finished to a point I am happy with. There are a few things I'm still wondering about and I'm sure some of you will be able to see if there's anything missing, but I wanted to get this out before doing the next issue. So, here it is!

thisweekmeta Editorial Guidelines v.1.0

Last updated: January 24, 2019

( Newsletter Manifesto )

( Choosing Links )

( Linking Etiquette )

( Maintenance )

( Posting Schedule )

( Formatting the Issue )

Moderator/Reading Accounts

• thisweekmod
• thisweekmod
• thisweekmeta

Suggestions, requests for further clarifications, and brainstorming about whether posts older than 5 years (or linked to on Fanlore) still need permission to link are welcome.