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marchmetamatterschallenge
Welcome to year 6 of the Meta Matters Challenge! I'm your moderator,
yourlibrarian. These posts will be used for us all to check-in with one another, offer encouragement and answers to questions, and maybe tips we come up with as we copy our work to other locations.
Before we begin, some reminders. Please look over the FAQ as there are some important bits for everyone to follow, namely:
Remember to tag all your posts with the "Nonfiction" tag in the "Additional Tags" section of the posting form if you are posting at AO3 or Squidgeworld, as well as a second relevant tag such as "Meta", "Review", "Essay" etc.
Remember to add that meta to the March Meta Matters Challenge community on AO3 or Squidgeworld.
Since this is our first check-in, please comment with one or more of the following:
1) Details about you: This could include canons (if any) you've written meta in, years in fandom, things you tend to write about (if you've noticed themes), or whatever else you'd like to share.
2) Details about your meta: How much of your past work are you going to be looking through? Have you already started reviewing fandom accounts? Do you have organizing tips to share as we go sorting through our posts?
3) Goals you have: Maybe you want to back up a certain number of posts. Maybe you want to compare things you used to write about to things you're writing now. Maybe the challenge is an opportunity for you to start using AO3 as a creator as well as a reader. Maybe it's a good prompt to re-read discussions in your posts that you'd forgotten about. We all have hopes of what we can accomplish this month. Feel free to share them!
Also, if you have any questions not already covered in our introductory post or in our FAQ, include them here.
Remember, this account accepts anonymous comments, so if you don't have a Dreamwidth account we still want to hear from you and have you take part. Just sign your messages with your username and we'll all get to know you!
no subject
Date: 2025-02-28 01:36 am (UTC)2) Details about my meta: Last year I wasn't able to do anything for the challenge due to my schedule, but the year before I'd caught up to 2020. So my goal was to catch up to now and finish copying over any meta not yet archived somewhere. I started doing this earlier this week and I suspect there's not much more to transfer since the MMM challenge began in 2020 and I've been fairly good about making sure new works are copied somewhere.
3) Goals I have: One thing I'd like to do once my transfers are complete is to spend a little more time at Squidge World looking for content about my fandom(s). Due to lack of time in prior years, I'd mostly been too busy with my own works. Also, as they've begun a Recs forum for fanworks I'd like to do some reccing there for meta works.
I also plan to use our new meta prompts to write some more!
no subject
Date: 2025-02-28 04:04 am (UTC)I only have three new works I'm looking to upload on SQW/AO3 this year. With that said, last fall I created a neocities site that I've started using as a personal archive, so I've been thinking about which works I might want to repost over there as well. For the most part, having three different versions of everything is already plenty... but I recently remembered that Bandcamp offers an "embed" code in HTML, and it's occurred to me I might test if I can repost an essay and directly embed an optional music track to with it, right there on the page. So I might try that out for a few of my works, depending on how the month goes for me.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-01 01:08 am (UTC)Hello!
Date: 2025-02-28 04:45 am (UTC)I typically post my meta on Dreamwidth, and some of the older stuff is on LiveJournal. Some is in notes under fiction I've posted on AO3. Since AO3 changed its user agreement and is now visible only to members who have signed that, I have quit posting there. I'm not on SquidgeWorld. But if anyone wants to copy my meta to another site, that's fine as long as you leave the credits intact.
Among my continuing goals is to do more archiving through sites like the Wayback Machine, Ghost, and Archive.Today so that is where I will typically copy my meta in addition to Dreamwidth posts. None of those three will save everything, and they are all prone to frequent service outages. However, they all save some things and they are free.
Note that Paywall Reader currently offers Wayback and Archive.Today; it used to offer more but has since reduced its options. It's still very useful.
I also recommend the new community
My Meta tag (or the older one on LiveJournal) includes descriptions of genres from another world, meta about some of my other writing worlds, links to other other people's meta often with discussions, meta about fanfic/fandom in general, some musings on how to handle particular topics, identity literature, and a few bits that touch on some particular canon. A lot of it involves me poking holes in other people's arguments, pointing out how suggestions are troublesome, and suggesting other alternatives instead. I also write Reviews.
My How To tag includes a lot of meta, although it's not always tagged as meta.
>>1) Details about you: This could include canons (if any) you've written meta in, years in fandom, things you tend to write about (if you've noticed themes), or whatever else you'd like to share.<<
Canons: I have a lot of original writing and I write meta for most of it. Hardcore meta. I mean I have oopsed a book repeatedly doing that and not all of them were even dictionaries. I have Tolkienesque amounts of notes and other meta. A Conflagration of Dragons and Daughters of the Apocalypse are a couple original series where I've posted substantial amounts of the meta because those settings really benefit from seeing their background materials. Quixotic Ideas is newer and now has meta posted. Peculiar Obligations, another newish series about Quakers and pirates, has meta but doesn't have a series page yet.
I wrote massive amounts of meta for the Torn World project but that website is no longer visible to the public. :( I did most of the work building three related languages and several ecosystems, and other folks did different ecosystems and scads of other worldbuilding entries, how-to-write guides, etc.
One of the bigger pieces I've posted about someone else's stuff is a guide to The Ursulan Cycle, which is genderbent King Arthur. The Shared Worlds page has links to other background materials.
I've written fanfic in many canons. *chuckle* Some of my earliest hardcore meta is still being passed around the Valdemar fandom, because they're demifiction guidebooks on how to do stuff. If I remember right, there was one on games and one one dyes/disguises. My biggest fanseries is Love Is For Children (The Avengers). That landing page has a bunch of meta in it along with links to the entries.
Time in fandom: I have decades in fandom, and more before that when I was a fan but had not yet discovered fandom as a community.
Things I tend to write about: I have a bunch of recurring themes that I address both in meta and fiction/poetry. These include but are not limited to adoption (including found-family and interspecies), boundaries and consent, ethics, family of choice and diverse family shapes, fish out of water, how to make the world a better place, identity, implications of special abilities, languages-linguistics-xenolinguistics, sex/gender dynamics (especially alien/fantasy iterations), sociodynamics, spirituality, trauma and recovery.
>> 2) Details about your meta: How much of your past work are you going to be looking through? Have you already started reviewing fandom accounts? Have you archived a lot of it already in past challenges? <<
I still suck at tagging meta as meta.
Last year I went through and archived my Meta, How To, Review tagged material. I'll need to do that again for the 2024 material.
Also in 2024, I launched the communities
>> 3) Goals you have: Maybe you want to back up a certain number of posts. Maybe you want to update older meta. Maybe you're looking forward to writing new meta. We all have hopes of what we can accomplish this month. Feel free to share them! <<
* Make a boost post on my blog announcing the event and my plans for it, which will give me a place to track what I've gotten done as I finish tasks.
* Go back through my various types of meta from 2024, make sure they are tagged accordingly, and archive them on other sites.
* Write and post at least one new piece of meta. I'm thinking about "Why We Need Fanifestos."
* Continue promoting this event on
Finally, my next Poetry Fishbowl will be on Tuesday, March 4 with a theme of "Yes, Actually, It IS That Bad." If you want to drop by and leave me meta-related prompts, I can write characters talking about meta; I've done a few pieces of that in the past.
Re: Hello!
Date: 2025-02-28 06:24 pm (UTC)Re: Hello!
Date: 2025-03-01 01:14 am (UTC)Re: Hello!
Date: 2025-03-01 11:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-28 06:44 pm (UTC)2) Details about my meta: In 2018 I started a Tumblr blog to post the Rifter meta that I was writing and for about a year or so I was really prolifically writing there. I mainly wrote observations and thoughts about the books as I was rereading, but I also wrote a few essays. I've written two (so far) fandom promo posts here on Dreamwidth and I'd like to do more of that.
3) Goals I have: I want to back up two series of posts from my Rifter blog: my essays and my reread chapter notes. I think I'm going to post them to Squidgeworld and possibly post my essays to AO3 as well. I want to write a new meta post about the book Halfway Human. If I manage all of that then I may spend some time building a masterlist of many different users' Tumblr posts examining the canon/fanon characterization of Sirius Black phenomenon that's going on right now.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-01 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-01 02:11 am (UTC)1) Details about you: Most of my meta this past year has been centered around Puella Magi Madoka Magica, but I've also written some about Thunderbolt Fantasy.
2) Details about your meta: - Picking back up where I left off last year, I'm archiving my Puella Magi Madoka Magica meta posts on tumblr to AO3. So far this year, I've archived ~25K, which is probably 2/3 of it, but it's difficult to know for certain until I'm done. The biggest challenge is that it is all extremely image-heavy, which means a lot of messing with HTML to ensure everything looks good.
3) Goals you have: Finishing archiving this past year's meta haul to AO3 is my primary goal; however, due to the nature of the meta, I am seriously considering a NeoCities site that will allow me to organize everything in chronological order while still allowing for nested hyperlinks to specific "theme" sections, similar to Jay Scott's Revolutionary Girl Utena meta website. Since AO3 allows for easy HTML downloads, I see it as an intermediary step that allows me to collect the meta in one place; from there, I can re-organize and re-structure on my own site.
I like using tumblr because it's very easy to post and discuss images, and because I can write small thoughts without getting paralyzed by making a Grand Unified Theory of Everything. The kind of website I am envisioning is a very complex endeavor, so breaking it down into small chunks is actually the best way to ensure it gets done in the long run--if I tried to do it chronologically or all at once, I think I'd be completely paralyzed.
I also have several longer essays (for both the aforementioned fandoms + some panfandom ones) rattling around in my head that I would love to get down in text, but while it would be nice to write at least one this month, my primary focus is archival.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-01 02:39 am (UTC)And yes, I can see how being able to download from AO3 makes it a lot easier to upload onto your own site. Good luck with it!
Done!
Date: 2025-03-02 12:45 am (UTC)Re: Done!
Date: 2025-03-02 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-03 11:15 pm (UTC)1) Details about you: I am Michi, I am animanga fans so most of my fandom tend to be japanese media. currently I am in Xenoblade, Uma Musume, Xenosaga & Madomagi brainrot so most of my meta will be revolved around those series but occassionally I might do different series if i feels like it.
2) Details about your meta: Most of my meta tends to be headcanon, character study, analysis, theories, crack, and AU. I also like to do queer readings. I'm not much of a fanfic writer, but sometimes there are drabbles. There's also a chance that my meta might include NSFW/dead dove elements, so please be advised (I will tag it). I mostly post on Dreamwidth, and all my journals are public, so no need to worry about access lists.
3) Goals you have:I don’t have many goals other than wanting to focus a lot on Xenoblade and Uma Musume (especially Xenoblade). I’ll probably archive it on my AO3 as well (but I’ll prioritize posting on DW). I’m also kinda interested in posting on SW because it’s not as crowded as AO3 (but it just talk for now, not sure I will do it).
Anyway I am very excited to do this challenge as I have so many theories & analysis piling up inside my head! it's my first time, so sorry if I make some mistakes or stuff.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-04 01:08 am (UTC)We'll be having another check-in post this week so if you end up having questions, just chime in and someone can reply.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-08 07:05 pm (UTC)2) Details about your meta: I'll be looking through my tumblr to try and copy posts onto DW in a more readable format. I hope that while I do this, I can get my tumblr a little more organized. Most of my random canon thoughts got posted there (when I was watching and rewatching Masters of the Air) because tumblr is good for short posts imo - but I'd like to combine them and tease out more concrete themes.
3) Goals you have: I want to crosspost things between tumblr and my DW so that they are easier to find. For my posts about The Great, I think they should go up at
no subject
Date: 2025-03-08 07:14 pm (UTC)Your plans sound like a great way of going about things. Good luck this month!
no subject
Date: 2025-03-09 01:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-20 06:30 pm (UTC)2) Details about your meta: I have 3 meta pieces that are already on
3) Goals you have: I'd like more discussion of the meta. The typical discussion centers for this fandom are Reddit and an official Discord server named Parahumans. However, the author is very heavily present in both. This creates a somewhat uncomfortable dynamic, since the author keeps on writing things with strong political themes, while wanting fans to hold to his interpretation of the work only. It's not great for posting meta that's more critical of the story.
Ideally, I can find someplace to post that will create more discussion. I'm leaning away from Ao3, because historically meta posted there doesn't seem to get much traction and I don't like feeling that I am spamming the tag for a fandom that already is so small.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-20 07:11 pm (UTC)I also recognize the difficulty of bringing people to DW which has a higher difficulty bar than most sites for newcomers.
One option to get more people to find meta is to rec specific works, either directly to an individual or as part of a fan rec list. I know I have seen people follow the links when I've done so.