Remember this?

[brigdh]

Deep Fanfic Thoughts, by Jack Handey. Oh, man. I'd almost forgotten about that site. So much good stuff. My favorite one is:
People think it's fun to write fanfic because you get all those readers. But they forget the negative side, which is the psychosis.

It's funny because it's true. And then:

I don't think I'm alone when I say I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of Prospect-L.

Prospect-L! I miss Prospect-L. That was so much fun. I was too scared to ever actually post, but I read all the messages religiously. I learned a lot on that list. Mainly things like 'don't piss off the moderator', but occasionally actual information would sneak through, too. We need another Prospect-L. I suppose fandom_wank is similar, but it's not the same.

And also check out: Life Cycle of the Bitter Old Fanfic Queen.

Comments

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

I've often thought we needed an anime version of Prospect-L. I'm still on the list but nothing ever happens any more.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Me too. There hasn't been a post in... god, probably over a year. It's so sad.

I'd start one, but I'm not really all that good at the 'bitchy fandom queen' thing. I prefer to sit on the sidelines and admire other people's anger.

[gamera.livejournal.com]

If anyone starts something like that, I am so in. I'm no good actually starting bitter old fandom things, but I'm all about jumping in once the discussion's going. :p

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee. So we're all decided that we'll join if someone starts it. We just need someone to, you know, do that. XD

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

I'm good at the bitchy but not so much with the fandom queen part. Really, I was much better at it when I had only one fandom and was...god, eight years younger. Dude.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

*sighs* One fandom... I remember those days. That was back before livejournal. Before any of the various incarnations of fandom_wank. Before RPS was okay, or Anne Rice went crazy, or Buffy ended, or Smallville became the gayest show on television.

Man, things were kinda boring back then, huh? ;)

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

They totally were.

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

What's Prospect-L?

(I'm terrible at "bitchy fandom queen". The one or two occasions I've posted on F_W I've felt guilty afterwards...)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

It was a maillist for the Sentinel Fandom. The homepage is still up here (http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/Prospect-L/), but there's not much to see. The idea behind it was to provide a place for open, honest fanfic critique- with or without the author's consent. Anything anyone posted publically was fair game, for response anywhere to 'This was okay' to 'This fic sucked and here's a list of reasons why you should hate it' to 'This fic is the perfect example of a current trope in the fandom that can be explained by the sociopolitical ramifications of the state of minority rights in American culture'. Since anything other than personal attacks was allowed, it quickly got the reputation of the 'mean list'.

It was terribly fun to be part of, and not just to see badfic authors get ripped to shreds. The majoirty of the people on the list were funny, eloquent, and unbelievably intelligent. It didn't seem like there was a single topic of discussion that could come up that wouldn't have someone saying something like, "Actually, I did my doctoral thesis on this very subject..."

Of course, there were constant fights, when someone whose story had gotten negative reviews would sign on to complain about the list, or with the fairly constant trolls who tried to provoke people into vicious, personal attacks. But in the end I loved it, and it's so sad that it's now defunct. I swear that the only reason I stayed in Sentinel fandom was for Prospect-L; the show itself was stupid.

[animadri.livejournal.com]

We need another Prospect-L.

We really do. I was on the list, but was mostly a lurker.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Same here. I don't think I posted even once, but it was so much *fun* to read other people's posts.

[quixotic-sense.livejournal.com]

Actually, there already is -- or was -- the anime equivalent of Prospect-L. That would be FFML (http://webpages.csus.edu/~seifertv/ffml/). Or, if you were around back when the old-skool anime ficcers were still posting Ranma fics and gigantic crossovers, rec.arts.anime.creative. Not that they were intended as such, I don't think, but in practice that was what they amounted to.

... I feel old.

I'm not entirely sold on the Prospect-L idea. Mostly because I find the idea of flinging about doctorates and theses to back up fanfic critique rather laughable. Then again, what's vulgar to one person is acceptable to another.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

I think you had to be there-- it wasn't "I'm right because I did my thesis on it!" so much as "hey, I was just working on this/talking about it in class!" At least most of the time.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool! Thanks for the links; I've never seen them before.

And hmmm, maybe I was explaining it wrong. It's not that people were being pompous or grandiose with their degrees (which probably were far less common then I'm remembering anyway), but that it was fun discussion of fanfic that still managed to be intelligent, rather than the simplistic 'Awww, that was cute' that a lot of reviews are. It was kinda like being in one of those really cool English classes, where everybody participates in fun discussions on the books and brings up neat things that you never would have thought of on your own, except it was for fanfic.

[quixotic-sense.livejournal.com]

Except that, as you said, you were too intimidated to participate. I'm not sure that I want a forum with an atmosphere that discourages the less confident to join in.

The thing to remember about anime fandom in general is that the native English-speaking (Western) fandom is a relatively small subset of it. The Chinese-speaking fandom, by all descriptions, is larger and more vibrant. Partly because so many manga get translated into Chinese and they're cheap. Many people of my generation in South-East Asia grew up buying manga (translated into Chinese, Malay/Indonesian, Thai, Filipino, or whatever) from newspaper kiosks for $5. So manga/anime is not really a geek thing, it's a pop culture thing. Especially when you also get Hong Kong martial arts comics and American comics being sold side by side.

I often feel iffy about fanfic critique without the author's consent in anime fandom, because sometimes it does turn out that English is the author's third or fourth language. I'm not a native English speaker either, and I do think that language problems are best corrected through private e-mails.

It's the consent issue that really gets me, though I'm always up for exchanges of information. I just think that I'd prefer it to happen in the context of discussions of the actual source material, rather than fanfic. That said, I'm not a big fan of meta (particularly when it focuses on fandom and fanfic rather than the source material) in general, so YMMV.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Except that, as you said, you were too intimidated to participate. I'm not sure that I want a forum with an atmosphere that discourages the less confident to join in.

Well, that's true. There is a reason why it had the reputation as the 'mean list'.

I just think that I'd prefer it to happen in the context of discussions of the actual source material, rather than fanfic. That said, I'm not a big fan of meta (particularly when it focuses on fandom and fanfic rather than the source material) in general, so YMMV.

I love meta. And I think it might have been neccessary to have meta in the Sentinel community, at least if you wanted a fairly active list. There just wasn't that much to say about the show itself. It hadn't run for too long, and it was so bad that there wasn't much to comment on. But the fanfic it inspired could do great things with the premise and the characters, and of course there was much more of it.

[quixotic-sense.livejournal.com]

Hmm. If the intimidation factor is resolved (leaving aside the critique issue), such a forum could go a long way towards being a place for interesting and informative discussion. I wonder if it would be wise narrow down its scope, though. The animanga fandom is huge. Even though a lot of animanga fans are multifannish, they don't necessarily love all their fandoms to the same extent. While, say, a comparison of the Shinigami in YnM vs Bleach could be fascinating, are there enough people who crosses over between the two fandoms? And someone who's in it for X and FMA, for example, wouldn't be too impressed with a flood of posts on GetBackers.

Are you thinking of a mailing list or an LJ community?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Are you thinking of a mailing list or an LJ community?

Oh, I wasn't seriously thinking about starting one. Just being nostalgic over something I was part of, years ago. I don't know nearly enough about the wider anime fandom to run something like this.

[greekhoop.livejournal.com]

I remember Deep Fanfic Thoughts. Thanks so much for posting that.

My favorite one is this:

To me, slash fiction is like a banquet, except there's no food, no guests and everyone hates each other.

Because, dude! I remember that essay! XD

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

XD Me too! With the hummus!

Man, that was a classic.