Yesterday I read this post by ladyhadhafang: In Defense of "Woobie Villains"There are several interesting, thought-provoking points in the post and the comments, and, oh boy, did it inspire some heated debate. Interesting doesn't mean I agree with them. Here are my objections. The first is that the subjectivity of the word "sympathetic" makes the whole ( Read more... )

When I learn new theories in class, often the first thing I think about is how they can be applied to fiction and fandom. "So when Anakin did this, this is what was happening in his head... If Padmé were to do that, this is how she might justify it to herself; these are the defense mechanisms she might use..." Occasionally, there's also "So this is ( Read more... )

A recent discussion made me realize that sometimes we mean very different things when we say "X is my favorite fictional character". I never really thought about it before, but I don't mean the same thing every time I say "favorite character". Sometimes I mean very different things. Different like day and night. There are interesting characters, ( Read more... )

hikarific has a thought-provoking post on rereading fiction and the experience of reading a book for the first time vs the second or fifth time. Me, I think it depends on the kind of reader you are. Some people do catch every mistake, along with the author's technical and stylistic tricks, on the first reading, no matter how engrossing the plot is ( Read more... )

Let's say you've got a really original idea for a story, something nobody's ever written, at least in your fandom. (Or, if you're truly cursed, a hundred such ideas.) Write it. Hurry. If you wait too long, someone else might write the same idea, and you won't even be able to say they stole got inspired by your idea, because you've never shared it, ( Read more... )

Why is it that anonymous!memes turn into wank!memes? Is it psychological? It's been proven that anonymity has a dis-inhibiting effect and encourages people to engage in antisocial behavior, and trolling/flaming is an online version of antisocial behavior. The mods of fandomsecrets know it: they have occasional anonmemes so that there is less trolling/flaming in ( Read more... )

found through metafandom and fandomnews

- Fandom Eye-wear is an interesting way to describe the phenomenon in which people who watch the same movie see different things in it depending on the type of shipping "glasses" they are wearing. I would add that it goes far beyond shipping.

- There's something about comments: in the recent deluge of meta on feedback and ( Read more... )

There has been some discussion in fandom recently (here, here and here) about using polls for feedback on fics. It seems like a revolutionary idea; the closest thing I've seen to such a poll was the poll an author posted in her fanfiction.net profile to find out which of her stories people liked the most.

gaudinight's cocktail party analogy doesn't work for ( Read more... )