moonbeamsfanfic | Entries tagged with meta

..., because then maybe fandom would stop making me feel like I'm a broken freak who needs to be "fixed" to find true happiness.

I would like it if (just once even!) I could a find an angsty fic that doesn't pull a complete turn-around into a so-called "happy ending" by essentially saying: 'Oh, hey? That thing that was making you miserable? All your own fault! Just admit I'm right and you're wrong, and presto! All fixed! Now we can be together forever!' Tadda, instant happy ending!

Because I don't buy it. Relationships don't just magically fix everything. And, hey, guess what? That's okay! People have flaws, they have fears, they have angers... it's part of life. It doesn't mean they're "broken" and need fixing to be happy. They can, wonder of wonders, learn to be happy with themselves flaws and all, you know. Love doesn't always conquer all.

But the message all these fics are sending is that no, really, I'm wrong. If I just change who I am, I can find love and then suddenly everything in my life will be so much better, yay! And that makes me feel horrible and alienated after reading these fics because, sorry, I don't buy their happily ever after endings. Because I want the characters to hold out for once, to not compromise themselves to make the 'happy ending' possible. Because I am not only not satisfied by the relationship working out, I am actually upset by it. Because it's not goddamn FAIR to the character, okay? It's just not. And it's not fair to me either.

Why can't these characters be allowed to be themselves and not have to change to suit someone else instead? Why aren't they allowed to hold on to their so-called "hangups" and have the other person adapt to live with them? To accept them as they are?

Why do they, do I, have to be "fixed" to find happiness?

Answer: We don't. I'm just fine the way I am, and so are most of them. That's why we love those characters in first place, isn't it? So, please, just someone... leave them be. Let them live however they want, let them find happiness in themselves for once.

Even if that means being alone.

I have a confession to make. The more I think about the Avengers movie? The less I actually like it. I know! It kinda shocks me too. Or it would have if... ( NO ACTUAL SPOILERS EVEN UNDER THE CUT BECAUSE I'M SNEAKY CLE-VER, HAHA! )

Avengers aside, that's not what I'm breaking the last six months of hermitdom to confess! No, no, it's far worse than that. Really, I'm practically ashamed of myself about this, but here goes:

I have become addicted to the MTV remake of Teen Wolf.

Whew! glad I got that off my chest. What? You don't know what I'm talking about? Don't worry, that's probably a good thing. It's, er, really godawful! Shitty acting, crappy plots, trying to take itself seriously when it's just plain ridiculous... it's a horrible show. How I ever got sucked into it I just don't know.

Okay, I'm lying! I know exactly how. It's the fandom's fault! They're actually really great, mostly because they don't really bother with the canon anymore than I do. It's all fanon, and ( the fanon is way way better! )

Geeze, two LJ cuts in one post? This is what happens when I don't post for six months. I get long-winded. Sorry, too many thoughts in my head! They have to come oooouuuut! ::flails wildly:: Save meeeeeeee!

TEAL DEER recap for those who didn't care (which I expect is everybody, ha! :P): The Avengers movie didn't wow me, but Teen Wolf fandom is embarrassingly addictive. Now I'm gonna go rec some kinky, hilarious Derek/Stiles slash on my Pinboard!

I don't usually rec fics here on my journal, because that's what Pinboard (and, ostensibly, Delicious - for now, until they screw up again) is for, but omg, you guys have to read this!

The Chuck Writes Story: An Unauthorized Fandom Biography by

Lettered (PG-13)

It is on the surface a Supernatural story and if you have or have had even the smallest passing interest in Supernatural fandom, you need to read this fic. I stopped watching SPN in Season 4, which is right about when this story is set, so it worked out perfectly for me. But I think anyone with even the smallest knowledge of Supernatural or just the teensiest understanding of the fandom will be blown away by the sheer awesomeness of this incredible metafic.

( Because that's what it is about: The Meta. (Cut for summary/spoilers.) )

But the levels of meta go deeper than just the obvious. It is also an examination of how fandom as a whole works and responds, how people react, why it is so important to us, and what it all really means, if it means anything at all in the Grand Scheme of Life. It's like holding up a mirror and microscope and magnifying glass on ourselves and our concept of fandom and what is reality all at the same time! It's drama and humour and angst and crack and wank and of course so much meta that your brain actually hurts trying to keep it all straight. It's real and it's not, but it feels like it is, like it could be, and the author actually made sockpuppets for the "supporting" evidence, and some the "characters" could be real fen you know, maybe on your Flist, maybe even you, because we've seen this all before but it's all new, and how can we tell where fandom ends and reality starts or is it all the same?

::cue mind-breaking::

I think you'd probably have to have some understanding of Supernatural to really grasp the depth of this fic, but even without it is a fascinating portrayal of the existence of Fandom in general and the world we all live in here on LJ anyway. Well worth the read for anyone!

WTF, LJ? Stop eating my cut text! Argh!

... not panicking. ;)

Okay, so as pretty much the entire intarwebs knows by now, Delicious' new owners Avos revealed their new "beta version" to almost universal outcries of "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo!!!!1!!"

Day or two later, some small hope is returned. Their Beta Status Blog indicates that the much-loved and essential features such as tag bundles and subscriptions are due to return. Special characters like the "/" for pairings, the exclamation mark (!), ampersand (&), period (.), colon (:) and even certain symbols like the heart (♥) and triangle (▲) are now working. (Although, apparently only for some people? Mine just came back a few hours ago, so maybe all it'll take is a bit of time to settle things.)

That said, thousands more fen are now participating in the Great Delicious Migration (add your name to the GoogleDocs Spreadsheet so we can keep track of you!) that first started last December with Yahoo!'s plans to shut down our lovely bookmarking tool. Some are heading for Diigo's free alternative, but there one must think about censorship concerns over random privatizing of porny links. Which isn't really very practical for most fen.

Many others are shelling out the small one-time fee ($9.44 at the moment) for Pinboard. I did too -- come see moonbeamsfanfic on Pinboard and feel free to add me to your network! (Don't forget to change your settings to show subscriptions!) Entry-cost aside, Pinboard is seeming to be the next best alternative to an as-yet nonexistent fan-made bookmarking tool. At least Maciej, the founder/creator, is being very friendly and welcoming to fandom invading his doors en-masse as we are. He's even open to suggestions as the in-progress GoogleDoc demonstrates.

Plus he's been very understanding of our crazy quirks even as it took no time at all to Rule 34 him with anthropomorphic crackfic in which Pinboard steals Delicious' girlfriend, Fandom. Which has been shared everywhere, and even Maciej has tweeted about it in good humour. For him and his awesomeness alone, I am happy with Pinboard!

In conclusion... I am not giving up on Delicious. The beta-version site relaunch was obviously WAY too early, but I'm hopeful things'll return to some semblance of normal. Fairly quickly too, if the other "fixes" implemented in the last 24 hours is any clue. (Granted it doesn't solve the problem of why they took them away in the first place, but meh... no harm, no foul in my book~~mark~~s.)

In the meantime. watch

deliciouslymad for updates and come find me on Pinboard!

Little help here please, guys!

I'm trying to remember what the main Rules of Fandom are to add them to my Fanfiction Terminology list.

I mean, there's the classic Rule 34 of course: "If it exists, there is porn of it."

Or Rule 63, which defines the entire trope of genderswap, basically states that any character can and will exist as a member of the opposite sex. Technically, Urban Dictionary defines it as "For any given male character, there is a female version of that character." But it works for female characters being redone as male, too, though that is admittedly rarer.

Those rules came out of the pre-established Rules Of The Internet that emerged from the 4chan boards, as most early things on the 'net did. But much of the others have become flexible over time, and fandom has devised our own takes on the idea. So while things like Rule 34 (and its corollary #35) or Rule 63 are well known, others are more obscure.

Like, I am certain there was another rule about crossovers. Specifically about how all fandoms would eventually be crossed-over with Highlander. Which has, imho, so far proved ridiculously true. And yet, not even all my creative Googling can't find it. I think it was either Rule 33 or Rule 68 (as in 'Revelations 6.8') but I'm turning up bupkis. Sound familiar to anyone else? Anyone? Bueller?

What about any other Rules of Fandom you know that I don't? There's gotta be something!

So I finally got to read Ghost Story, the latest book of the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. Yes, I know, I work in a library, why the hold up? Uh, because I work here? Duh! Staff don't actually get half the privileges you folks do, you know. We have to wait our bloody turn. Except we don't pay late fines, which is kind of a great trade-off as these things go. So, anyway, late though it may be, the book was definitely worth the wait. Yay! \o/

( Overall impressions, effectively spoiler free... you'd have to know it to get it! )

Oh hey, I just noticed that the Dancing Stickman icon doesn't work so well with Queen music as the background soundtrack, pooh. The beat's too slow. Hmm, maybe...? No, that's too fast. Oh geez, this is harder than I thought. I know I've got songs the same tempo as that icon, I've seen it before but here I am cycling through my entire collection and everything's just off enough to be... Oh wait, you've gotta kidding me?! Candyman by Christina Aguilera is in time? That can't be the only thing that works! Okay, there, Lady Gaga works too, that's a bit better. What else have I got? Mmm, Late Nights and Street Fights by Dirty Vegas is pretty sweet, and Boney M's Ra Ra Rasputin is just so fun it makes me giggle. Oooh, ha! Fall Out Boy really rocks it! Heh.

And so does Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO. Perfect! Okay, we'll stick with that for a bit.

;)

It's 2:00am and I just finished reading a very good Supernatural/Criminal Minds crossover. It a WIP, but there's already enough meat to the story written to sink nicely into. I enjoyed it completely, and am eagerly looking forward to the rest when it gets posted.

Like a good little reader, I fully intended to write a review. Gotta keep encouraging those authors to churn out my daily allotment of entertainment, yanno? I'm all for the provision of feedback! But thankfully I managed to stop myself from posting this one:

Hey, this is not too bad at all! So far, so good - everybody's behaving in character, no one's secrets are being spilled, nobody's a long lost relative or had suddenly-remembered past supernatural encounters which make them instant believers. Add in a case with actual elements fit for both teams, an even combination of mystery suspense and fun banter, and some pretty darn top notch writing and I think we have a winner! Sweet mercy, but this might be one of the best SPN/CM crossovers I've ever encountered!

Which means the only thing left to say is: Thank you!

Upon rereading, it's possible that little review might be revealing juuuuuuuust a little subtle bitterness. A somewhat hidden disgruntlement, perhaps. Evidence of a stealthy build-up of resentment due to too much exposure to such aforementioned bad and cliche type stories to which I have developed an aversion. Just a little. Maybe.

Erm...

You know, I've noticed this odd quirk of mine before. Most other people, the more they read, the longer they spend in fandom, the broader their tolerances get. New ficcers might suddenly discover slash isn't half so squicky as their heteronormative selves initially thought, or long-time ficcers branch out into other pairings or relax their standards on grammar. Not me though. I seem to be the only person I know who has gotten more selective as the years went on. These days I'm down right picky.

What's up with that, I gotta wonder? Even as I constantly add more and more fandoms in my relentless search for fic (Dresden Files, Leverage, and BBC's Sherlock in the last month alone, for example!), my definition of "good fic" has reduced to the point where I only actually read about 1 in 100 stories I click on. Including from many of the highest-rated ones that everybody else seems to think are the bomb.

But why am I so picky? It's not hubris; it's not like I think I can write better than them, 'cause I totally know I can't. Heck, that's one of the reasons I haven't written much at all for the last few years -- I usually feel my skill level is inadequate to tackle the ideas that hop my way in a manner worthy of their nature. Yet something makes me judge each story by tighter and tighter criteria, and while it might mean that each story I do read and rec is the best of the best, I can't help but feel like I'm missing out on something.

Or maybe it's just really late and I should go to bed before my brain drips out my ears.

Yeah, that sounds like a good idea too. ::nods ~~off~~::

Why did I not know that last week's episode of Supernatural was actually hijacked and written by a cracked-out fanfiction author? Seriously?! Dean and Sam are actors Jensen and Jared in an AU reality who play Dean and Sam on TV? That can't possibly be a real episode! It's a FANFIC plot! I know it is, because I'm pretty damn sure I've read that story already!

Wow. Just wow. I know the show has a history of fanservice, but wow. That's, it's like... RPF is now officially canon. WTF?

::is totally weirded out::

I couldn't even bring myself to watch the ep because just the five minutes of it I did see was enough to completely freak me out. Gimme back my Fourth Wall! I can't handle the meta!

WHAHHHHHHHHH!
I'm actually kinda glad I stopped watching in Season Five now, because this? Would have killed me if I were still an active fan. Dead, I tell you! DED!

You know what's really frustrating? Authors who decide to quit fandom and wipe ALL TRACE OF THEIR EXISTENCE off the intarwebs when they leave.

I get why you might want to leave, I really do. There's lots of perfectly good reasons, and more power to you if you feel one of the them is the right decision for you. But does that mean you have to remove every story you've ever written from every place it is posted before you go? I mean, sure, that's your prerogative as the writer, but there's one little downside you may have neglected to think about first.

I still want to READ them!

::pouts::

Question: Why don't we have a "pre-het" category?

I mean, if in a story two male (or two female) characters flirt and show a clear undertone of sexual or romantic attraction, the story is not listed as being Gen. It's called pre-slash, because while there is no overt kissing or sex, the inference is obvious that two same sex characters either wish to or will get together non-platonically at some point after the fic.

So how come stories in which two heterosexual characters flirt/exhibit desire but don't actually kiss 'on-screen' are still considered Gen?

Why aren't they pre-het?

Why is there that unconscious inference that the presence of heterosexual relationships don't violate General fiction's standard clause of "no sex or romance" but inferred homosexual relationships do?

ETA Underlying Question: What makes a story Gen?

~*~*~*~

This meta question is brought to you by a reader who's had to stop reading far too many so-called "gen" fics because of unexpected pushing of a disliked het 'ship. (Even if nothing physically happens, the constant presence of the unwanted 'ship hovering over every action and character development never fails to completely ruin an otherwise fine story. It's very disappointing, actually.)

Please, if you have any insight into this, please comment! I'm honestly curious to know why this situation exists, and why it's considered acceptable by... well, pretty much everyone. I don't think I've ever seen this question raised before, in any fandom. I'm not ashamed to admit this puzzles me.

Thank you,
Moon.

ETA: Just in case, please note that my replies to your comments are NOT arguments -- just further questions. I'm simply, honestly, curious about this issue. I just want to know. Please, feel free to say anything you think or feel! The more input, the better the discussion! Thank you!

My car's gone in for a service check-up, so I'm stranded at work all day today. (Even though I'm only technically scheduled to work 'this morning' -- which is now past -- and 'this evening', with five plus hours of time to be wasted in between because I can't go any place! Eeeee!) Some of that time will obviously be spent playing online, so if anyone's around feel free to drop me a line. ;P

Also, a little reminder notice:

I posted a poll last night pretty late. It's about Spoilers and Story Warnings. I'd really appreciate it if everyone would take a few minutes to vote in it. I'm very interested in the results.

POLL IS HERE, PLEASE CLICK!

Thanks!

I've found I very much tend to be in the minority where it comes to my love of knowing what's going on ahead of time. I love spoilers, and think warnings for fanfics are the best thing since ratings. (And heck, now that I think about it, there are even some folks who refuse to rate their fic, and that's a whole other issue to think about!)

But a lot of people out there not only don't want to have the mystery ruined for them, they also get rather strident about anyone who does. So, poll. What's the limit? Where's the line between what's acceptabe to talk about, and what should be kept secret so as not to take away somebody else's enjoyment? And if it should be kept secret for those so inclined, what's the best way to go about it?

Take my poll and let me know what you think of these issues. Further comments and/or extrapolations will also be gratefully accepted.

Thank you!

[Poll #1083733]

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Moonbeam's Fanfiction Predilections

May 2017

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Page Summary

I wish there was such a thing as Vindication fic...
I really should post once in a while just to prove I'm still alive, huh?
Fic Rec: The Chuck Writes Story by Lettered
Where I am on the Delicious situation...
Rules of Fandom: What Are They?
Harry Dresden: My kind of ghost.. er, guy. *eg*
Am I getting cynical in my old (fic) age?
Wha-huh?! My brain, it hurts!
Thank [insert diety here] for the Wayback Machine!
Fandom Meta
Bored now. :/
Poll: Warnings and Spoilers, To Show or Not To Show?

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Page generated Jun. 9th, 2025 08:23 am

Moonbeam's Fanfiction Predilections -- LiveJournal

Fanfic is the essence of life -- or at least the fun parts. :)

Entries tagged with meta

I wish there was such a thing as Vindication fic...

I really should post once in a while just to prove I'm still alive, huh?

Fic Rec: The Chuck Writes Story by Lettered

Where I am on the Delicious situation...

Rules of Fandom: What Are They?

Harry Dresden: My kind of ghost.. er, guy. eg

Am I getting cynical in my old (fic) age?

Wha-huh?! My brain, it hurts!

Thank [insert diety here] for the Wayback Machine!

Fandom Meta

Bored now. :/

Poll: Warnings and Spoilers, To Show or Not To Show?