#one was an expansion about misogynistic handling of characters in The Sandman books

[so-i-grudgingly-joined-this-site]

So, in the course of starting and subsequently scrapping at least two further meta essays, I think I've come upon a frustrating phenomenon of fandom that I've decided to term "should've stayed in the classroom". It's related to "should've stayed in the drafts" and "fandom wank" BUT the original poster has a legitimately good point that is unfortunately completely wasted in the fandom social media format, which lacks the understood terms of debate, simultaneous approach to the same source material, pretense of expert moderation, and teeth-clenched dedication to at least surface level politeness and good faith that academic debate does.

(Ever seen a paper titled something like "A measured response to [someone else's paper]"? Someone is about to try and tear a bitch apart, but they can't *say* it)

Of course, academia has a litany of institutionalized issues that, frustratingly, often parallel those in fandom and social media. HOWEVER, there is something to be said about how social media is essentially a busy street corner you're shouting on-- even if the Shouting Street Corner Guy is saying something important or that you like, you're unlikely to listen to him there rather than at something like a conference or structured debate. Such debate is NOT going to happen on the street corner. It's vital to bring such ideas to the wider world, and admittedly I have no idea how, but the random street corner shouting isn't it.

So yeah, if you're wondering what happened to some of my planned essays, I took a look at how the arguments were shaping up and decided they Should Stay in the Classroom. The observations were either too dense for the likely random-passerby reader, angry in tone, or easy to take in bad faith outside of specific context.