dreamfellowship - Profile (original) (raw)

Who are you? What is this place? This community is the brainchild/love interest of a girl who was relatively late to the fantastic party that is Lord of the Rings Real Person Slash. It's my attempt to get a handle on the fandom, to be able to keep track of the amazing fiction that's already out there, and to discuss new fiction, as well as ideas about writing and real person slash.

No, I still don't understand what you think you're doing! All right, let's get down to down to the bones of it. LotRiPS (please, for the love of God, would somebody tell me what the 'i' stands for?) is a massive fandom. Huge. There are a million scattered links and users all over the place. And it's a lot to take in, to muddle through. So, really, this community is just about my need for order, to be able to wade through everything that is out there and make it manageable.

So, what's going to be here? One: A (hopefully!) comprehensive list of websites and stories that are interesting, enjoyable, and well-written. Two: discussions of those stories. Three: meta discussion of LotRiPS, as well as the nature of writing RPS or just slash in general.

If your story or site hasn't been mentioned, please don't be insulted. We likely just haven't gotten to it yet. Join and talk about it yourself!

Well, since this seems to be all about you, why make it a community? Why not just start another personal page, and leave everybody else alone? Well, honestly, because I don't want to be all alone here!

Fandom can be a terrible place at times, in which people are awful to one another, and highly critical. If that's your gig, please go away. Seriously. Nobody is forcing you to look at this page, to join this community, or to even think about any of this.

However, fandom can also be an interesting, compassionate place where people respect each other, and truly enjoy communicating with one another. And that's the kind of community I want to form here. It may sound utopian, it may be redundant as all hell, but that's what I'm going for. If you think this is ridiculous, useless, whatever, please see the preceding paragraph.

Above all, I want this to be fun. Fun for me, fun for you. Serious and fun may seem counter-intuitive of one another, but I think we can make it happen.

What makes you think we need this community? Since when is fandom about *need*? I really wouldn't define any of this as necessary, in the grand order of life. What I do think that fandom is about is desire. The desire to write, to think, to create, to dream about pretty hot boys - or girls or both - kissing, or talking, or whatever your characters do. And the desire to talk about these things, and share information and ideas with other people. If my desires don't line up with yours, please don't judge me for them. Just go away. If they do, stick around and join in on the fun.

So who can join? Just your friends, you elitist cow? Not at all. Membership is going to be open. It's possible nobody is going to want to join. In that case, I'll just post happily by myself, and it'll be a community of one.

So you're just trying to eliminate thoughtlessness, to encourage people to write well, and to be respectful of one another while doing both of those things? Yes!

And once I'm a member, what can I post about? Whatever you want. Seriously.

Really? I want to talk about why I loved one story, or a series of stories for screen after screen. Go ahead! That's what this community is here for. Just remember that lj-cut is your friend.

I want to talk about my own writing. Again, go for it. It's important to have a forum in which people can think through ideas or characters, and sometimes your own lj can be too personal or public a space for ideas and thoughts.

I want to pimp a new or old website, or a writing contest. Ain't nothing stopping you, babe. Just list the url, and if it goes down, try to let us know.

The story, idea, or website I want to talk about has already been discussed. So? I'm sure you have something new to say. Even if it isn't new, if it's important to you, we want to hear about it.

I want to talk about why I really hated a story! If you want to rave or rant, please keep in mind that somebody wrote the story you're talking about. Essentially, criticize ideas, not people. If you become abusive towards another individual, I will take away your posting access.

I want to rant about how people don't follow common principles of style and grammar. We're here for you! Tell us about it!

I want to post about graphic sex. As long as it involves at least one cast member from Lord of the Rings, please do!

Can I only talk about slash? Discussion of het and gen is fine, and would add a nice element of diversity to the community. But please don't go off on why you don't like slash. We've all heard it before, and we just don't care.

Can I post my story? We care what you're up to, or at least I do, but I'm not really trying to create another archive of fiction, per se. I'd prefer it if you posted a link to your story, and if you want to go meta on what the story meant to you, how hard/easy writing it was for you, etc, when you post the link, feel free!

What kind of stuff are *you* going to be posting? I'm basically just exploring the fandom, bit by bit. So I'm going to post what I read every day, and organize it in the memories. I may wax rhapsodical about it, I may not. If you don't care about what I've read, skip the post. If you really don't care, don't monitor the community.

If I join, do I have to post all the time? Of course you don't. Talk when you have something to say. Easy enough.

So you don't care what I talk about, as long as it's relevant to Lord of the Rings Real Person slash or fiction, and I write clearly and respectfully? Exactly!

So what's the catch? Well, I'm going to moderate posting access. The reason I'm going to do that is to create a sort of system of sober second thought. (Why, no. I don't study government!) So if you want to have posting access, just drop me a note or post a comment here. It doesn't have to be highly detailed, just let me know that you've considered the above rant and will take those values into account when posting. "Hi, I like what you're doing here. Add me!" or something along those lines will do. Once I've given you access, you can post whenever you want.

Just a note: I really don't see myself denying access to anybody. I'm not trying to create some idealized version of a community here, nor do I have a grand vision of what this is going to evolve into. It's an experiment, more than anything. I know that I tend to be scared of approaching places like this, and I don't want anybody to worry about rejection. The fact that you cared enough to join, honestly, after reading through all of this, is going to be enough for me.

*yawn* Are you done talking yet? Just about! If there is anything that you think should be listed in the interests, let me know. I'm going to keep the memories regularly updated, so if you can't find something, or are looking to get a foothold into the fandom, try them.

One last thing: The current mod is a totally broke grad student, so this is currently a free account, and therefore the journal is not quite as pretty a site as possible. If anybody has some spare cash lying around, and wants to upgrade us, feel free.

Likewise, the lay-out is going to pretty simple, because I'm as short on time as I am on money. But if anybody has mad coding/graphics skills, and wants to do something with the page, just send an email. Anybody who contributes anything substantive will be made co-mods.