Some meta, and more drabbles
Oct. 12th, 2004 12:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakBrowsing through friends' friends list and the like, I came across a post of Kita's which describes a well-known syndrom in many a fandom: the impression one is part of a persecuted minority, with TPTB and/or other fen specifically gunning for the character/the 'ship in question. Even if said character and/or 'ship is actually more than popular with both fandom and writers; she mentioned Spike in this regard; you could add Faith or Lilah, or, switching fandoms, Sam Gamgee. I couldn't believe my eyes when reading a post mentioning Sam as a character who was underappreciated and hard done by. By whom? His creator? Tolkien used Sam's pov from TTT onwards for all the Sam & Frodo scenes. His fellow Hobbits? Sam ends up as mayor of Hobbiton and RotK specifically mentions that he, Merry and Pippin get the public applause and fame among the Hobbits Frodo does not, much to Sam's frustration. And while marriage and 13 kids are perhaps not a happy ending in many a slasher's pov, it's clearly intended as a reward by Tolkien. Moving on to the fandom, I haven't met one fan who doesn't love Sam. So where is the lack of appreciation for Samwise Gamgee?
Back to the topic at hand.
I must admit I'm somewhat guilty of claiming minority status myself at times, what with liking the Star War prequels and venting about the lack of Centauri fanfic until a year ago. Or liking Dawn on BTVS. But I hope I haven't bought into the feeling of persecution by TPTB or other fans.
My guess is that it might come down to the ambivalent feeling many fans have about the creator(s) of their original text, and the imbalance of power they cannot quite accept. No matter how popular Fanon!Draco is and how many fanfics featuring him are written, they won't change the fact he'll never show up in the Harry Potter novels. And no matter how many fan declare they're in the fandom solely for the fanfic, the existence of the novels as a work in progress and prime source will continue to influence said fanfic, whereas the reverse will never be true.
Similarly, it doesn't matter how many rants are written about George Lucas both in the print media and on the internet. He can afford financially to be indifferent (as opposed to, say, producers of a TV show struggling in the ratings). And all the purist fervour of the world is not going to take the prequels away, or to produce the OT in it's originally released form, or to produce sequels (unless Lucas has a heart stroke and dies tomorrow and his daughter really, really needs the money). The man has the copyright.
It gets trickier with fandoms that are by definition created by several sources. Babylon 5 being something of an exception because starting with late season 2 JMS really wrote all the episodes himself. Now that might sometimes result in episodes where you feel the exhaustion, but on the other hand you don't have episodes that feel as if the writer isn't that familiar with the characters (D.C. Fontana's The War Prayer comes to mind, where the JMS written scene between Londo and Vir in the garden clearly differs in style from the rest of the ep), and you do have an ongoing characterisation. I might have missed something, but I don't think B5 fandom had complaints like "OMG, JMS hates Marcus!" when Mr. Cole bought it, or "Garibaldi/Lise is so out of character". There was much grief for Marcus' death, and Lise was much disliked, but I don't think it was argued that either Marcus sacrificing himself for Ivanova, or Garibaldi finally ending up with the woman he obsesses about as early as season 1 didn't make sense.
And then there are shows like the Jossverse ones, where Joss Whedon is a prime influence but definitely not the only one shaping the universe or characters of the three shows he produced. With the exception of Tim Minear, I can't think of a major Jossverse writer, including Joss himself, who didn't go through phases of being loved and being hated by several fannish factions. (Or was there Minear resentment that I missed?) Bear in mind I don't mean every day criticism (i.e. "episode X was a filler, and character Y didn't have much to do"); I mean the "Joss/Marti/David Fury/Whoever hates Y and ruined Z!" kind of uproars. Again with the imbalance of power; the Jossverse scribes interacted more with the fans than most TV creators via message boards and conventions, and that might have fed the sense of entitlement and fury, no pun intended, when storylines did not go where some fans wanted them to go. We communicate with each other via the internet; all the chats might have created a deceptive illusion of equality. Because, let's face it, it always was an illusion. Popularity of characters like Spike or Lindsey might have kept them alive longer than originally intended, or brought them back, but there was no way the ME team was ever going to have a "who survives, who dies" poll. The creative process on TV is oligarchic at best; it never was a democracy, and fervent believer in democracy that I am, I don't think I'd want it to be.
(For one thing, my girl Darla would never have been brought back after her brief stint in BTVS season 1 and developed into the character she became; there was no Darla demand existing in fandom. For another, Andrew would have bought it, not Jonathan, and I thought Andrew surviving was the far more interesting choice. Etc.)
I'd define fanfiction as an ongoing dialogue with the original source. Sometimes arguing for, sometimes arguing against it. And that can be very rewarding. But as mechanisms go, it's rather going to make you part of a larger community, not of a persecuted minority. Because, and that is one of the joys of fandom, there are usually far more people agreeing or feeling a similar need than you would have thought.
***
Speaking of fanfic, check out the drabbles I received in reply to my post yesterday, in the comments. From my various fandoms, and they're absolutely delightful. So naturally I wrote some more myself, for other people.
Fun
(Sandman)
***
This was supposed to be fun. And once upon a time, it had been. Annoying Dream in his duty-bound stuffiness, tasting the anger and frustration in his heart each time he visited Desire's realm. Knowing he would never, ever be able to muster the most perfect of defenses: indifference. For how could he ever stop to desire?
But now the boy had died, and the flower, the perfect red flower in Desire's hands carried no breath of triumph to it. Instead, it smelled of grief and brokenness. Why was it that the knowledge of Dream being broken scared Desire?
This was supposed to be fun.
Dust
(Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
***
The dust hasn't even settled. It never will. Buffy is familiar with dust. She breathes it in and out each day, each night: the ashes of the vampires she fights, the dry cemetery ground she runs over when she pursues them, the sand from the desert, brought by the wind on some days. It clings to her skin and remains in her hair, no matter how many showers she takes.
When she woke up in a coffin, the smell of her own decay was so strong that it drowned out her awareness of nearly everything else, but not dust. The thick earth, falling on on her as she dragged herself out of her grave. It was something familiar, as reassuring as it was frightening. She could not decide which it was more.
Now Sunnydale is gone, but the dust hasn't settled. Only its quality has changed. She stands at the edge of the crater, breathing it in. Old loss, new loss, yes, that is familiar, but there is hope here as well, for the first time. She's not sure she'll want to take a shower tonight.
The dust hasn't settled yet, and it never will.
The Uninvited Guest
(Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
***
She never talked to any of the other guests. That was how Kira first noticed her. Hosting receptions was one of the more wearying and less rewarding tasks she had inherited from Sisko as the station commander. In the old days, she could have ignored the dark human woman who kept watching her, or she could have asked the stranger what she thought she was doing. These days, Kira felt obliged to saunter over and ask politely whether there was something she could do.
"Yes," the woman said, in a low, pleasing voice that grew edgier with each word.
"You can help me destroy the ones who raped me and used me as their plaything. The ones whom I had pretend to die for to escape. The ones who drove my son insane and nearly got my grandson killed in their battles for power."
"The Dominion has withdrawn from the Alpha Quadrant," Kira said, empathizing with the woman's rage but forcing herself to be what she had learned to be. "And the Cardassians are worse off than you could ever make them right now."
The woman stared at her. "I'm not talking of the Dominion or the Cardassians," she said. "I came to you because they did something similar to you once as well."
"Who are you?" Kira asked, suddenly having a bad feeling about all of this.
"My name is Sarah," the woman replied. "And I need you to help me destroy the Prophets."
You know, the later was partly caused by discussing DS9 with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
andrastewhite, and partly by my own ongoing issues with the Prophets. I do have the vague idea of writing a larger fic which would either put Kira in a similar situation to the one the various Weyouns were in with Odo - i.e. one of her gods leaves heaven and tells her heaven is truly morally rotten and she shouldn't worship, or use the somewhat different idea of this drabble as a starting point. ..
Back to the topic at hand.
I must admit I'm somewhat guilty of claiming minority status myself at times, what with liking the Star War prequels and venting about the lack of Centauri fanfic until a year ago. Or liking Dawn on BTVS. But I hope I haven't bought into the feeling of persecution by TPTB or other fans.
My guess is that it might come down to the ambivalent feeling many fans have about the creator(s) of their original text, and the imbalance of power they cannot quite accept. No matter how popular Fanon!Draco is and how many fanfics featuring him are written, they won't change the fact he'll never show up in the Harry Potter novels. And no matter how many fan declare they're in the fandom solely for the fanfic, the existence of the novels as a work in progress and prime source will continue to influence said fanfic, whereas the reverse will never be true.
Similarly, it doesn't matter how many rants are written about George Lucas both in the print media and on the internet. He can afford financially to be indifferent (as opposed to, say, producers of a TV show struggling in the ratings). And all the purist fervour of the world is not going to take the prequels away, or to produce the OT in it's originally released form, or to produce sequels (unless Lucas has a heart stroke and dies tomorrow and his daughter really, really needs the money). The man has the copyright.
It gets trickier with fandoms that are by definition created by several sources. Babylon 5 being something of an exception because starting with late season 2 JMS really wrote all the episodes himself. Now that might sometimes result in episodes where you feel the exhaustion, but on the other hand you don't have episodes that feel as if the writer isn't that familiar with the characters (D.C. Fontana's The War Prayer comes to mind, where the JMS written scene between Londo and Vir in the garden clearly differs in style from the rest of the ep), and you do have an ongoing characterisation. I might have missed something, but I don't think B5 fandom had complaints like "OMG, JMS hates Marcus!" when Mr. Cole bought it, or "Garibaldi/Lise is so out of character". There was much grief for Marcus' death, and Lise was much disliked, but I don't think it was argued that either Marcus sacrificing himself for Ivanova, or Garibaldi finally ending up with the woman he obsesses about as early as season 1 didn't make sense.
And then there are shows like the Jossverse ones, where Joss Whedon is a prime influence but definitely not the only one shaping the universe or characters of the three shows he produced. With the exception of Tim Minear, I can't think of a major Jossverse writer, including Joss himself, who didn't go through phases of being loved and being hated by several fannish factions. (Or was there Minear resentment that I missed?) Bear in mind I don't mean every day criticism (i.e. "episode X was a filler, and character Y didn't have much to do"); I mean the "Joss/Marti/David Fury/Whoever hates Y and ruined Z!" kind of uproars. Again with the imbalance of power; the Jossverse scribes interacted more with the fans than most TV creators via message boards and conventions, and that might have fed the sense of entitlement and fury, no pun intended, when storylines did not go where some fans wanted them to go. We communicate with each other via the internet; all the chats might have created a deceptive illusion of equality. Because, let's face it, it always was an illusion. Popularity of characters like Spike or Lindsey might have kept them alive longer than originally intended, or brought them back, but there was no way the ME team was ever going to have a "who survives, who dies" poll. The creative process on TV is oligarchic at best; it never was a democracy, and fervent believer in democracy that I am, I don't think I'd want it to be.
(For one thing, my girl Darla would never have been brought back after her brief stint in BTVS season 1 and developed into the character she became; there was no Darla demand existing in fandom. For another, Andrew would have bought it, not Jonathan, and I thought Andrew surviving was the far more interesting choice. Etc.)
I'd define fanfiction as an ongoing dialogue with the original source. Sometimes arguing for, sometimes arguing against it. And that can be very rewarding. But as mechanisms go, it's rather going to make you part of a larger community, not of a persecuted minority. Because, and that is one of the joys of fandom, there are usually far more people agreeing or feeling a similar need than you would have thought.
***
Speaking of fanfic, check out the drabbles I received in reply to my post yesterday, in the comments. From my various fandoms, and they're absolutely delightful. So naturally I wrote some more myself, for other people.
Fun
(Sandman)
***
This was supposed to be fun. And once upon a time, it had been. Annoying Dream in his duty-bound stuffiness, tasting the anger and frustration in his heart each time he visited Desire's realm. Knowing he would never, ever be able to muster the most perfect of defenses: indifference. For how could he ever stop to desire?
But now the boy had died, and the flower, the perfect red flower in Desire's hands carried no breath of triumph to it. Instead, it smelled of grief and brokenness. Why was it that the knowledge of Dream being broken scared Desire?
This was supposed to be fun.
Dust
(Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
***
The dust hasn't even settled. It never will. Buffy is familiar with dust. She breathes it in and out each day, each night: the ashes of the vampires she fights, the dry cemetery ground she runs over when she pursues them, the sand from the desert, brought by the wind on some days. It clings to her skin and remains in her hair, no matter how many showers she takes.
When she woke up in a coffin, the smell of her own decay was so strong that it drowned out her awareness of nearly everything else, but not dust. The thick earth, falling on on her as she dragged herself out of her grave. It was something familiar, as reassuring as it was frightening. She could not decide which it was more.
Now Sunnydale is gone, but the dust hasn't settled. Only its quality has changed. She stands at the edge of the crater, breathing it in. Old loss, new loss, yes, that is familiar, but there is hope here as well, for the first time. She's not sure she'll want to take a shower tonight.
The dust hasn't settled yet, and it never will.
The Uninvited Guest
(Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
***
She never talked to any of the other guests. That was how Kira first noticed her. Hosting receptions was one of the more wearying and less rewarding tasks she had inherited from Sisko as the station commander. In the old days, she could have ignored the dark human woman who kept watching her, or she could have asked the stranger what she thought she was doing. These days, Kira felt obliged to saunter over and ask politely whether there was something she could do.
"Yes," the woman said, in a low, pleasing voice that grew edgier with each word.
"You can help me destroy the ones who raped me and used me as their plaything. The ones whom I had pretend to die for to escape. The ones who drove my son insane and nearly got my grandson killed in their battles for power."
"The Dominion has withdrawn from the Alpha Quadrant," Kira said, empathizing with the woman's rage but forcing herself to be what she had learned to be. "And the Cardassians are worse off than you could ever make them right now."
The woman stared at her. "I'm not talking of the Dominion or the Cardassians," she said. "I came to you because they did something similar to you once as well."
"Who are you?" Kira asked, suddenly having a bad feeling about all of this.
"My name is Sarah," the woman replied. "And I need you to help me destroy the Prophets."
You know, the later was partly caused by discussing DS9 with
andrastewhite, and partly by my own ongoing issues with the Prophets. I do have the vague idea of writing a larger fic which would either put Kira in a similar situation to the one the various Weyouns were in with Odo - i.e. one of her gods leaves heaven and tells her heaven is truly morally rotten and she shouldn't worship, or use the somewhat different idea of this drabble as a starting point. ..
