Honest Discussion
Nov. 9th, 2005 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhBack in the day, I was on the Prospect-L maillist. Now either, like me, you come from slash fandoms and have your own wonderful or terrible memories associated with those words, or you've never heard of it.
Prospect-L was designed for the in-depth discussion and critique of fanfiction. It wasn't always particularly nice discussion, which is why it earned the nickname of "the mean list", but it was incredibly interesting. I adored analyzing stories and trends within fandom, chatting about writing and reading, about pet peeves and kinks and characterization problems and why things worked when they did and why they didn't when they didn't. It managed to combine a lot of my very favorite things about fandom: that sense of a thoughtful, intelligent community in love with the same topics.
Prospect-L is still around for anyone interested, but unfortunately I'm no longer in The Sentinel fandom, so the discussions don't apply to me the way they once did. There's not really anything to replace it in my current fandoms. Sure, you'll get feedback when you post a fic, and if you're lucky you might even manage to spark a discussion or two about canon interpretation. If you've got a good beta, you might get some wonderful, enlightening conversations from him or her about your fic. But there's not quite the same kind of sustained, detailed talking about either specific fics or general tendencies that I like, and there's certainly no central location where you can go if you want to talk about this type of thing.
So I thought I'd make one. How's that saying go? "If there's something in fandom you want to see, stop complaining and do it yourself". Help me out by answering a few questions, so I can get an idea of what other people would like.
[Poll #608985]
Prospect-L was designed for the in-depth discussion and critique of fanfiction. It wasn't always particularly nice discussion, which is why it earned the nickname of "the mean list", but it was incredibly interesting. I adored analyzing stories and trends within fandom, chatting about writing and reading, about pet peeves and kinks and characterization problems and why things worked when they did and why they didn't when they didn't. It managed to combine a lot of my very favorite things about fandom: that sense of a thoughtful, intelligent community in love with the same topics.
Prospect-L is still around for anyone interested, but unfortunately I'm no longer in The Sentinel fandom, so the discussions don't apply to me the way they once did. There's not really anything to replace it in my current fandoms. Sure, you'll get feedback when you post a fic, and if you're lucky you might even manage to spark a discussion or two about canon interpretation. If you've got a good beta, you might get some wonderful, enlightening conversations from him or her about your fic. But there's not quite the same kind of sustained, detailed talking about either specific fics or general tendencies that I like, and there's certainly no central location where you can go if you want to talk about this type of thing.
So I thought I'd make one. How's that saying go? "If there's something in fandom you want to see, stop complaining and do it yourself". Help me out by answering a few questions, so I can get an idea of what other people would like.
[Poll #608985]
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-11 05:34 am (UTC)The Symposium (http://www.trickster.org/symposium/) started waaaaay back in 1999, on accounta I wanted an essay site. The LJ community
The Fanfiction Critics Association started around late 1999, almost as a joke from my "biography" on the Symposium. [Unknown site tag] was an early adopter of the cause ;).
no subject
Date: 2005-11-11 06:17 am (UTC)I was there when Prospect-L formed (and when FCA-L formed), I just hadn't remembered the reasoning for the creation of Prospect-L. Since I had never been on Senad, and only interacted with other TS fen through the FCA-L, the jokes about "getting our own list" stuck in my head as the reason for the creation of P-L. P-L certainly answered the need, even if that's not why it was formed.