Phannish Stuph
Oct. 21st, 2004 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamer_easyAn illuminating essay from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ranalore on character vs archetypes in fan fiction. LJ has meant my proper introduction to metafandom, if that's the right word - fans of multiple texts who my move between and combine them (eg Harry Potter doujinshi). In Australia at least, Doctor Who fandom is an entity unto itself, with only tenuous connections to wider media or literary SF fandom, whereas here fandom comes first and texts second.
The Guardian asks: Why do we still fall for Mr Darcy?. Speaking of archetypes, he and Mr Rochester have something to do with Snape fan fiction.
It's that man again: behold, the first unofficial James Callis Web site.
I'll bet you've already heard of the remote that can turn off public TVs. I heard on the radio that there's now a thingy that can prevent all but emergency mobile phone calls in cinemas. We need one of those for the library, and also a device which causes the sudden demise of students using Hotmail on the research computers. Preferably not a messy demise, as the carpet is still new; perhaps something which leaves one smoking shoe as a warning to others.
ranalore on character vs archetypes in fan fiction. LJ has meant my proper introduction to metafandom, if that's the right word - fans of multiple texts who my move between and combine them (eg Harry Potter doujinshi). In Australia at least, Doctor Who fandom is an entity unto itself, with only tenuous connections to wider media or literary SF fandom, whereas here fandom comes first and texts second.The Guardian asks: Why do we still fall for Mr Darcy?. Speaking of archetypes, he and Mr Rochester have something to do with Snape fan fiction.
It's that man again: behold, the first unofficial James Callis Web site.
I'll bet you've already heard of the remote that can turn off public TVs. I heard on the radio that there's now a thingy that can prevent all but emergency mobile phone calls in cinemas. We need one of those for the library, and also a device which causes the sudden demise of students using Hotmail on the research computers. Preferably not a messy demise, as the carpet is still new; perhaps something which leaves one smoking shoe as a warning to others.
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Date: 2004-10-20 08:20 pm (UTC)Please, allow me. Metafandom, this is Kate. Kate, this is metafandom.
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Date: 2004-10-20 09:27 pm (UTC)I've heard they have been thinking of putting anti-mobile phone devices in cinemas and cafes and the like, but have trouble restricting the area of effect, and don't want to affect reception in the street outside (which might even be a safety issue, if people are trying to make an emergency call).
Also, can't you just restrict access to the hotmail domain on the computers? Too easy. Though I don't see what the problem is, myself. We used Stratford-upon-Avon's library to catch up on mail and do a lj entry, which was very useful.
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Date: 2004-10-20 10:22 pm (UTC)David Morgan-Mar made an interesting comment about this in his Irregular Webcomic:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/filmforensics/3805.html
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Date: 2004-10-21 12:48 am (UTC)Come to think of it, you might imagine that blowing up the planet would frag the moon pretty effectively. Lucas should have had the Death Star approaching from behind the *sun*, not a planet. They can't blow *that* up. I hope.
safety issue
As mentioned, the guy on the radio reckoned the new blocking thingy allowed emergency calls through. It must be something a bit more sophisticated than a Faraday cage made from tinfoil, as enormously delicious as that idea is. :-)
I don't see what the problem is
You would if you had to queue to search databases or get your online homework because the kids couldn't be arsed to wait for one of the five jillion anything-goes computers to email their friends about Orlando Bloom*. But frankly, if it's possible to prevent this technologically, and we're not doing that, then it's our fault!
* No amount of editing has improved this terrible sentence. We're both stuck with it.
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Date: 2004-10-20 11:23 pm (UTC)One enterprising librarian I heard of used his metal shelving and some tin foil under the carpet and hidden in the roof to form a Faraday cage to block mobile phones. He posted the instructions on the Net somewhere.
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Date: 2004-10-20 11:35 pm (UTC)(It seemed a good library too. Albeit I only really had a look at their huge comics section, and their DVDs, which I was amused to see cost money to borrow)
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Date: 2004-10-21 12:37 am (UTC)You can do that? Why don't we do that?!
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Date: 2004-10-21 12:30 am (UTC)On one side, there's an insistence on conforming rigidly to predefined canon, drawing an ever-narrowing box at the whim of the fan rather than the creator. (Having already heard the Who books dismissed as "fanon", I'm just waiting for someone to level that word at Russell Davies, so I can try out your smoking-shoe device on them.) On the other, a complete disregard for paying attention to the actual text, so long as they can make the story conform to their personal idiosyncratic set of preferred cliches / archetypes / lustful desires / whatever. (See everything from ludicrous slash pairings to "the Doctor always wears a frock coat or else it's wrong" -- two different forms of disregard for the content of the actual text.) At both ends of the spectrum the richness of the source material is marginalized -- treated as either a list of things to police rather than explore, or as something to be shoehorned into one of the same half-dozen pre-made fantasy shapes. Both of which kill imagination, inventiveness, and genuine story exploration in favor of More Of The Sodding Same.
Do I rant? Very well, then, I rant. It's been building up for a while now. But so much of fandom just seems to disregard the distinctiveness of the actual stories themselves. Metafandom? Generifandom, more like.
I think part of this is my old-school The Author's Not Dead Yet approach to literature, where I like to look closely to the story, and it *matters* what the author wants their story to be. (Authorial intent and its reflection in the text isn't all-consuming, but it's not negligible either.) I'm realizing that most of the products of fandom that still interest me are the ones that *extend* the stories, from A to an unexpected B. Not A to A, not a sudden leap from A to Q with no regard for how you get there, especially not when Q is in the heart of an all-too-familiar cliche territory.
And on a tangent from some of the followups to that essay... slashfic about real people / pop bands / etc sets my teeth on edge. These are *people*, folks. The only real people I'd be willing to write about in sexual situations are ones I know well enough to show what I've written. The fact that PR people and celebs willingly participate in reducing themselves to marketable cliches for public fantasy doesn't excuse it; it just adds the extra layer of sordid marketing and consumerist celebrity to the process. It feels like they're playing along with a marketing machine. Insert further dyspeptic grumbling here...
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Date: 2004-10-21 01:02 am (UTC)Interestingly, some fans maintain slash violates canon - we don't see Snape and Lupin in the sack in those kids' books - but others seem to take the view that it would only violate canon if it directly contradicted it (eg if Rowling declared Snape / Filch OTP). The latter are often genuinely embroidering in the margins - not merely loosely projecting dirty Alan Rickman fantasies onto the characters, but trying to include and invoke canon through characterisation and detail. There's a huge difference between mannequins labelled "Snape" and "Lucius" shagging, and Snape and Lucius shagging. In dismissing all slash as "ludicrous", there's a danger of acting like the first set of fanboys, who try to dictate the content even of published fiction.
Managed to get in both my ships. I am so embarrassed. No, not the Filch one, you perverts.
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Date: 2004-10-21 01:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-21 12:21 pm (UTC)Having already heard the Who books dismissed as "fanon", I'm just waiting for someone to level that word at Russell Davies
I'm sure someone will... :P
On the other, a complete disregard for paying attention to the actual text, so long as they can make the story conform to their personal idiosyncratic set of preferred cliches / archetypes / lustful desires / whatever.
To go with DW fandom for a sec, one thing I think that's lost in the eternal flames (heh!) is that it's not in any way a balanced dialogue. I mean, that (perceived at least) divide between Fan anf Pro is there. Arguably, that means the most eloquent and outspoken voices in fandom have been filtered off away from the more mainstream fandom coffecup. I'm sure someone could do a great argument for why the Doctor must always have a frock-coat, but the ones who are in that part of fandom are overall less equipped to put their ideas into words if only because they don't have degrees in English Lit (to take an example).
Another thing I think we overlook on both sides is that there's a huge difference between being the one to change the existing text (NAs, EDAs, the new telly thing, whatever) and being the ones who have to accept that text and live with it. If you see what I mean? Getting to blow up Gallifrey is a whole different kettle of porn from standing by and watching it blow up and no longer having it in what you're being told is a shared, flexible universe.
so much of fandom just seems to disregard the distinctiveness of the actual stories themselves. Metafandom? Generifandom, more like.
The Who books for better or worse diverge from the telly more than other tie-in series tend to. Which is part of it. If you write in an established universe that people are emotionally-attached to, you can't ignore the world outside the confines of the text. It'd be fun to, it's annoying when people tell you not to, but... there occasionally does seem to be a vibe from the Pro side of "Aha! This will piss people off! I shall kill Leela and Sarah-Jane and Tegan in a drug-fuelled lesbian love triangle!"
I would so pay to read that. Well, I'd click a link to read that.I think part of this is my old-school The Author's Not Dead Yet approach to literature, where I like to look closely to the story, and it *matters* what the author wants their story to be. (Authorial intent and its reflection in the text isn't all-consuming, but it's not negligible either.) I'm realizing that most of the products of fandom that still interest me are the ones that *extend* the stories, from A to an unexpected B. Not A to A, not a sudden leap from A to Q with no regard for how you get there, especially not when Q is in the heart of an all-too-familiar cliche territory.
Thing is, that's the same argument have the knee-jerk faction are going with, albeit you said it in better words. We're never all going to agree with what exactly B is and why B is there and whether children should be allowed to read B etc blah. Bear in mind here that if we're talking fanfic rather than (the term that first occurs and not intended as a value judgement etc) profic then... the author will never read it. No one is going to actually take it as being in any way indicative of or overshadowing of that original text. If someone can read Lord of the Sodding Rings and then go and write
horridAragorn/Gollum pr0n and make the reader believe in it then more power to them. Same with Harry/Draco or whatever. It's not harming anyone and it's not changing or claiming to add to the original text.And on a tangent from some of the followups to that essay... slashfic about real people / pop bands / etc sets my teeth on edge. These are *people*, folks. The only real people I'd be willing to write about in sexual situations are ones I know well enough to show what I've written.
Eh. I am squicked by it generally, but... I can see why people write it. And, again, I don't think it's actually harming anyone. "Oh-em-gee, I read this story in the interweb and now I KNOW that Orlando Bloom is at it with Elijah Wood!"
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Date: 2004-10-21 12:21 pm (UTC)*humble grovelling*
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Date: 2004-10-21 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-21 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-21 04:30 pm (UTC)My raison d'etre.
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Date: 2004-10-21 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-21 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-21 04:33 pm (UTC)Yup. Without pretending there's a balance or a neat compartmentalisation, the fans don't get to dictate to the authors, and the authors don't get to dictate to the fans.
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Date: 2004-10-21 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-21 06:50 pm (UTC)Remembering Fandom
Date: 2004-10-21 10:00 pm (UTC)I have some experience with the classes of fandom, especially with regard to fan fiction. I think I went into fan fiction for different reasons than most. Characters weren't my strong suit back then, and not what I was interested in capturing, at first. For me, Who fan fiction was about trying to recapture the anticipation of the seasons, seeing how each episode interacted with the others to produce a whole. Perhaps this was because my strength was (and is) plot. I wanted to put stories together, not explore the depths of character. For this reason, I've always had an affinity for such projects as the Audio Visuals over other fan fiction magazines and fan projects.
Still, I consider my experience to have been invaluable. By stretching out plots, I think I learned how to characterize. I started with stock characters, making my differences with bold and unsubtle strokes. I had several stories of joined continuity to develop those subtleties. And I think that Doctor Who is a good universe for writers to develop their craft in. You combine the stability of a hero and companions with the breadth of universe. You are free to create whatever you want, or dip into a bag of stock villains to help you along.
In 2001, I discovered Harry Potter fandom. Yes, I discovered Harry Potter fandom BEFORE I discovered the books. So, chalk one up for the fandom.
I was attracted to HP fan fiction because the concept was so alien to me. To write fan fiction for Doctor Who was one thing; the show's created by committee, and is on a completely different medium than fan fiction. One fan's interpretation of the series and its continuity is as good as the next persons. But to write fan fiction in a universe that shares the same medium, that's unquestionably the purview of a _single_ _living_ author? I was surprised J.K. Rowling had nothing to say about it. She had to have known, especially as Harry Potter fan fiction was outpacing Star Trek and Doctor Who fan fiction combined to the tune of 10-1.
But I got into it. I think I stepped into it because I wanted to see if it was _possible_ for me to write in another universe -- a step towards writing original fiction. I picked a ship, partly because by this time I was quite a romantic, and also because I think J.K. Rowling herself was leaning that way (Ron/Hermione), and I took a standard Who plot and tried to see how it would spin in the HP universe. The stories didn't get much farther than first drafts, but the experience was fun, and the camraderie I experienced worthwhile.
Just as in Who fandom, I never made a name for myself. That was never my intention. My first goal was to create something for its own sake. My second goal was to have fun. And I did. I've since bought all five of the Potter books, and I still keep an eye occasionally on the ship stories.
I think my best Harry Potter fan fic was "Letters in the Summer After the Fall of Voldemort", when I finished with my Who-plot-spun-in-the-Potter-world story and tried to see if I could make the characters tick. If you're interested in reading it, you can find a copy here:
http://www.sugarquill.net/read.php?storyid=866&chapno=1
It's fluff. But I had fun.
More of my stuff can be found here. They're short. :-)
http://www.sugarquill.net/index.php?action=profile&id=116
Oh, and a Snape songfic, here. Be afraid. Be _very_ afraid.
http://www.sugarquill.net/read.php?storyid=228&chapno=1
Anyway, sorry for cluttering up this post. It reminded me of my fan days, and the fun I managed to have while so many others lost their sense of perspective. Not that I can claim any moral high ground, as I was involved in some fan wars myself, but for the most part I managed to go in and come away with what I wanted.
I hope on most days this is how you feel about fandom. Because I feel like it has been a big part of your life up to now, and it is sad to have that marred by the slings and arrows, etc.
All the best to you,
James
Re: Remembering Fandom
Date: 2004-10-22 12:05 am (UTC)Jon and I were discussing last night that he's becoming disillusioned with (Doctor Who) fandom just as I'm becoming enthused about (Harry Potter) fandom. I've long gafiated from Who fandom, but I've found LiveJournal allows me to participate in fandom with a remarkably low level of bullshit. It's very comfortable. (My doubled dose of antidepressants has also played role!)
Re: Remembering Fandom
Date: 2004-10-22 08:37 am (UTC)