Anyone who cares has probably seen this elsewhere, but...

Taking over where operanotes left off, loge_no_5 is a new Phantom of the Opera newsletter for the fandom, collecting news and updates from stage, film, fanfiction, and fandom fields. I'm still tweaking the design and the layout, but the first newsletter is up!

Please join, and let me know what you wan to see from a community like this. My aim is to give us a clearing-house for fandom activity around the internet, as I have yet to find a centralized location for Phantom fandom. That means that any news is welcome (though I will not, most likely, be following every move of every person who's ever played in a film/show of that name). But major developments, contests, fanfiction, discussion, and on down through new RPs needing members should be covered, and I'd much appreciate your help in getting this off the ground.

[In other words, yes, I'm crazy.]

Not much there yet, but if you're interested, feel free to join. Oh, and if you're a member of other communities of people who might be interested, please let them know for me. Thanks!

She's done a better job at this than I could, or at least, a good enough job that I don't have to, so anyone interested in the LJ Advisory board elections should see tkp's post about what we should do. As she says, it's for the children porn! It's outdated now, because I am slow. But still important.

In other news (speaking of) I got linked to a modern day POTO fanfic in which Erik is a professor (with apparently no problem wearing a mask in school, so far it's not addressed), married, with two kids, and receiving sexual favors from an extraordinarily slutty 17-year-old Christine in exchange for good grades. I'd have stopped but then Nadir showed up as a beat poet who tokes up with Raoul, and that was just too amazing for words. It's the only part of this morass of OOCness I almost want to be fact.

As a legit rec, I want to cite cesario's girl!Harry stories, Girl in the War and the prequel, Twelve Hundred Hours. She does stuff with a female Harry Potter that I wouldn't have imagined, but makes sense to me.

In still other (personal) news: Still indecisive.

I can't help but think that "freedom of speech" and self-policing are two separate issues. I support the idea that unreasonable dictates from on high squelch free thought and should be questioned. But why does it follow, then, that we should absolve ourselves for all responsibility? Can't we want free and safe space to express ourselves and reserve the right, as individual communities, to express disgust with certain practices?

In plain speech, can we fight against censorship and also decide that we don't support certain forms of pornography? Why can't we say, "This should not be forbidden, but neither do I find stories of sex between adults and pre-adolescents acceptable in my space"? Or any other set of standards a community as a group want to apply.

Or is it just too hopelessly messy to have ethics and standards when we're talking about the limits of speech? Because no matter what they are, someone else will think those standards too harsh or too liberal, and clearly even asking whether we can apply "standards" implies that the speaker considers herself the ultimate authority. (Not something I intended, and I very much regret that.) Is it a contradiction to find anti-pro-ana stances hypocritical, but not think Junie B. Jones (to quote a recent metafandom post) porn is right? This is just an example. I am not trying to argue the validity of either of those statements. Only to discuss whether we can make both.

I expect I'll regret not writing this better. I just haven't the patience right now.

Edit to clarify: No, I do not like the behavior of LJ/6A over the past few weeks. I am decidedly *not* arguing that we shouldn't be worried, or that LJ should be able to ban any content that is not illegal. I am merely pointing out what is, for me, a nebulous ethical territory we should think about.

Edit after metafandom: I expect I'll regret it even more now, as my post has clearly left itself open to the interpretation that I might be advocating that only my own personal standards are valid. This is not at all what I intended. I merely used examples I felt were typical, in order not to be so vague as to be useless. Perhaps I could have said the opposite: "Perhaps we can call the anti-porn people hypocrites, but can't we also argue about the validity of pro-ana sites too?" All I really want to ask is whether we can ask LJ to allow us safe space for discussion and also dictate, for our own journals and communities, what material we deem appropriate. I personally think the answer is yes. What I am against is retaliatory action which only strikes at others the way fandom has been struck at.