It's interesting to me how fandom has a way of bringing together people with widely disparate views and passions into one volatile community. I want to understand that better. And so, a poll:

Poll #1465194 Stories
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 16

Which aspects of a story usually interest you most?

Also, I have another question for those of you who have been involved in more than one fandom and/or have experience with multi-fandom or pan-fandom communities (Fandom Wank or Cosplay.com, for example):

What would you say are the most common sources of conflict in fandoms? What do people argue about the most? What issues are most likely to cause a fandom to divide into smaller cliques?

I would really like to get a lot of good responses for this, so please, if this discussion interests you, than not only answer, but also PIMP IT FAR AND WIDE! Thank you!

Joie

Thanks to Naruto fandom, I've taken to calling them "pairings" rather than "ships". Other than nomenclature, not much changes between fandoms when it comes to "pairings"--both the good and the bad.

Anyway, just for fun, a meme, stolen from quite a few of you:

NAME A FANDOM AND I'LL TELL YOU MY:
♥ OTP
♥ Runner-up
♥ Honorable mention(s)
♥ Crack pairing(s)
♥ Ship everyone else seems to like, but I don't

Joie

Distract me from my laryngitis/horrible hacking cough, plz!

Swiped from umadoshi:

Name your 10 absolutely favorite couples (het/slash/canon/fanon) and ask people to see what trends they notice about your couples. Try to pick different fandoms:

1. Tohru/Kyo (Fruits Basket)
2. Gambit/Rogue (X-Men)
3. Remus/Tonks (Harry Potter)
4. OBHWF (Ron/Hermione + Harry/Ginny - Harry Potter)
5. Jesse/Becca (Life Goes On)
6. Willow/Oz (BTVS)
7. Anakin/Padme (Star Wars)
8. Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
9. Renji/Rukia (Bleach)
10. Logan/Veronica (Veronica Mars)

These aren't really "absolutely" my favorite couples. Since the point of this meme is to invite discussion I favored more well-known pairings over, for example, Ryuuki/Shuurei from Story of Saiunkoku.

Hmmm...I can already see some common threads. What do you think?

Joie

Or if copyright law is of any interest to you, which I think applies to almost anyone who frequents Teh Intarwebz.

Three stories and an argument...

umadoshi shared this link, and I wanted to pass it on. It's a lecture and slide show presentation by Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig. Aside from giving an entertaining presentation that includes a clip from an AMV as an example of user-generated remixing of content, he makes an interesting argument about how current copyright law stifles creativity (and he does so without condoning piracy). Good stuff, and well worth the 20 minutes of your time it will take to watch.

I found it especially interesting watching this after having read several posts this evening (including the multi-part series by praetorianguard) about the case JKR is bringing against the publisher of Steve Vander Ark's book (see TLC's article for details). I don't quite feel comfortable arguing that what Lessig says about user-generated remixing in his lecture exactly applies to this situation, but I do know that while I believe JKR probably has a solid case—and I don’t deny her right to pursue it—I can't help feeling more sympathy for Vander Ark in this case. I believe his compilation of the online Lexicon constitutes an act of creativity, and that it ought to be encouraged. Of course there’s the issue of putting it up for free on the web vs. selling it for profit in print form. Of course there’s the issue of possibly including content written by other contributors without their consent. And of course there’s the issue of how incredibly foolish some of the representatives of his publisher have been. I’m not going to get into all of that. All I’m saying is that my gut feeling is to sympathize with Vander Ark, and that I appreciate his work on the Lexicon as a creative act.

If it were up to me—and I know this could probably be classified as an “unpopular fandom opinion”—I’d say that Vander Ark would probably be a great choice to edit/compile JKR’s official HP encyclopedia, as long as it included additional content from her notes, and her touch and flair in the writing itself. That’s what would happen in my perfect world. For while I think very highly of JKR as a storyteller, she doesn’t really strike me as the sort of detail-oriented person who can take and catalogue loads of trivial information in the way that I think would make the most appealing Harry Potter reference book. That’s JMHO. PLZ don’t flame or refer F_W to this post, mmkay?

Anyway, I wish there were some way for JKR and SVA to resolve the problem that would mollify and benefit both of them—and fans, too!—but I doubt it’s possible at this point. :(

My hopes for the future of what Lessig calls a “read-write” culture, however, are a lot higher. What do you think?

Joie

I thought this was an interesting topic of discussion:

fernwithy ponders what makes something "fandomable" or "ficcable".

After doing a couple of posts on things my f-list isn't especially into (Warriors and Tom Sawyer), I got to thinking about the question--what is it that makes something "fandomable" and something else just popular? (I'm not talking about popular vs. unpopular; no accounting for that, sometimes, just kind of, what inspires these insanely talkative and creative fan communities, as opposed to being "the it book" or something along that line.)

Everything out there has some fandom somewhere, I'm quite convinced, but there's a difference. Harry Potter has 281,748 stories at the moment at The Pit, and will probably gain a couple hundred by the end of the week. Stephen King, who has arguably sold a comparable number of books, has 371. The ubiquitous Da Vinci Code has 190. John Grisham isn't even listed. The bizarrely popular Gossip Girl books rack up a total of 70, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants--movie and all--only gets to 203, and all of Georgia Nicholson's full-frontal snogging can only get her to 84, despite a lot of popularity when FFN was at its peak.

Go read the rest, including the comments, wherein I rank anime/manga series by number of fics at FFN and puzzle over why Furuba ranks as high as it does.

Joie

If you don't know what this is about already, here is the necessary background info.

It really bugs me that people are somehow able to believe that angiej/Ebony's lifting of several lines and--more significantly--the structure of a very pivotal and memorable scene from Anne's House of Dreams and using them in Trouble in Paradise without crediting LMM is not plagiarism.

YES, IT IS!!!

Oh, how I remember the night I found that passage, over a year ago. I searched and searched for a citation, because I remembered hearing about the whole CC thing and how the BNFs had assured people that whatever she and any of them borrowed was cited--and like a litle child, I believed! I looked at the beginning and end of that chapter in TiP, throughout the chapter, at the previous chapter, at the next chapter, at the first chapter, at the last chapter for any mention that Ebony had borrowed from one of my favorite authors, whom she also claimed as one of her favorite authors. I liked Ebony, darn it. Not that I ever knew her personally, but I had lurked at her journal and liked most of what I saw there, and despite all the things that some of my fandom-oldbie friends said, I always just felt like I should give her the benefit of the doubt. I remember feeling sure that the citation must be somewhere and I was just overlooking it.

But there's no citation, and I'm sorry, but just because it's only a few lines and the two scenes show a similar and somewhat common circumstance doesn't excuse it. I don't believe for a second that it could have been subconsious. That scene in LMM's book is intense--it's not likely to be forgotten, especially by someone who is a particular fan of the author. Also, it's not just the words itself that are lifted. There are some important details that Ebony also borrowed, which I think are what make LMM's scene so effective: one, that the husband is the one who has the job of informing his wife of the loss, and two, that the POV is taken away from the grieving woman's room as she cries out. The first detail increases the intensity of the scene, while the second undercuts it. It creates a climax, and then gives the reader a bittersweet relief. It's brilliant writing, IMO, and Ebony stole it, and it makes me angry that people refuse to recognize that.

ARGH! Sorry if I'm being wanky, but I hardly ever go off on the things in fandom that bug me, at least not publically. I think it's my turn to rant. >:|

Joie

Fandom questionnaire

Yes, another meme. Isn't it exciting?! Stolen from alphabet26.

Pick six fandoms and answer the following questions. Don't look at the questions first.

1. LOTR
2. HP
3. Star Wars
4. Veronica Mars
5. Fruits Basket
6. Full Metal Alchemist

( The Questions )

Mom and I watched Out of Africa this evening. It's a beautiful movie.

On a completely different note, I would like to recommend another AMV, mainly because the song is funny (the choice of characters/clips adds to the humor if you are an anime fan, but it should be funny even to people who are not anime fans, because the song itself is amusing and appeals to anyone who knows general pop culture): The Ultimate Anime Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.

Must go to bed now. Good night!

Joie

( The book—SPOILERS )

Joie

P.S. Anyone want to volunteer to add the text "A little more love in the world" in a readable but not too distracting font to my icon? *bats eyelashes* Thanks, karet!

Gacked from delemtri and angua9, and slightly modified by me:

a. I will not claim that writing ships which I do not endorse would make JKR a bad or cheesy writer. My judgement of the quality of her writing will be based on other criteria than which ships she chooses to write.
b. I will not leave the fandom due to the outcome of the romantic subplots. If I am proven wrong, and I choose to leave for other reasons, I will at least remain long enough to concede.
c. If a competing ship sails in canon, I will congratulate those who had the foresight to ship it.
d. If I am proven wrong in my beliefs, I will blame MY OWN JUDGEMENT, and not the author or anyone else. I will acknowledge to all and sundry that I was wrong -- not only about the outcome but about my interpretations of many aspects of the story -- and I will try to use the experience to improve my interpretation and prediction skills.
e. I will reserve judgement on whether any particular subplot or development is good, bad, or enjoyable to me personally until after I have actually read it.

Joie