How the other half lives...
Mar. 6th, 2010 05:13 pmIf you're written fanfiction for some time, you're bound to encounter, sooner or later, feedback along the lines of "usually I don't care about character X, but you've made me think about him/her" or "your story really made X work for me". Actually, that's the best version. Sometimes the feedback sounds more like "X is scum/ I've always hated that whiny X/ X totally ruined the show/film/book for me but..."
Now, I've experienced several emotional reactions. It's easiest when the feedback is for a story about a character whom I've have mixed feelings about myself - Gaius from Merlin, for example, or Simone on Heroes -, and I have written those. (I've also written stories where the pov character was one I disliked intensely. It blackly amuses me that my very first Heroes story back when I was in fervent love with the show was a Sylar pov, and trust me, even before loathing him as one embodiment of much of what went wrong I never cared much for Sylar.) Sometimes I even write to figure out a character I'm not sure about better. Then feedback based on the "look what you've done, you've made me suddenly understand X!" principle is immensely satisfying, flattering even.
However, when the feedback is for characters I'm absolutely passionate about, whom I feel ridiculously defensive for, then the instinctive reaction is another matter. Cases in point: Connor back in my Angel days, or Abigail Brand ever since Astonishing X-Men. Then even cautiously phrased character dislike in the feedback, phrased, for example, like "if Connor was like that on the show, I might have liked him" or "you've almost made Brand bearable to me" raised my hackles. I felt like replying "well, obviously this IS how I've seen him/her on the show/in the book, that's why I fell in love with him/her". (This wasn't what I replied, btw; I usually told myself to see the reaction as a compliment and simply reply with "thank you" or "I'm glad you enjoyed the story".)
Why I am I reminded of this again? Because I suddenly find myself on the other side of the fence, so to speak. Not about a character I dislike, though. No, it's more complicated. Now, as a reader, I've experienced cases where someone else's stories made me reexamine canon and become more interested in characters I had overlooked. For example, Lennier on Babylon 5, whom I had liked fine during the original broadcast but had never paid much attention to and hadn't found that interesting. Later on, when after acquiring the B5 dvds I read fanfic by
deborah_judge and
eye_of_a_cat during my rewatch, and this definitely made me far more interested in the Lennier scenes than I had previously been. So that's familiar to me, but what I'm experiencing right now is something else. A sense of disconnection, is perhaps the best way to phrase it, about much of Morgana-centric fanfiction in Merlin. It's not a case of "oh, this makes me see Morgana in a new light"; more a case of "I'm sorry, but I can't see how this Morgana is the show's Morgana; maybe she's more inspired by Katie McGrath in her interviews and audio commentary?" Don't get me wrong: ( vaguely spoilery remarks for both seasons of Merlin ensue. )
In conclusion: I'm not sure I have one, except that I'm frustrated, and wonder whether this is what readers felt when writing to me about other characters "I like your version of X, but..."
Now, I've experienced several emotional reactions. It's easiest when the feedback is for a story about a character whom I've have mixed feelings about myself - Gaius from Merlin, for example, or Simone on Heroes -, and I have written those. (I've also written stories where the pov character was one I disliked intensely. It blackly amuses me that my very first Heroes story back when I was in fervent love with the show was a Sylar pov, and trust me, even before loathing him as one embodiment of much of what went wrong I never cared much for Sylar.) Sometimes I even write to figure out a character I'm not sure about better. Then feedback based on the "look what you've done, you've made me suddenly understand X!" principle is immensely satisfying, flattering even.
However, when the feedback is for characters I'm absolutely passionate about, whom I feel ridiculously defensive for, then the instinctive reaction is another matter. Cases in point: Connor back in my Angel days, or Abigail Brand ever since Astonishing X-Men. Then even cautiously phrased character dislike in the feedback, phrased, for example, like "if Connor was like that on the show, I might have liked him" or "you've almost made Brand bearable to me" raised my hackles. I felt like replying "well, obviously this IS how I've seen him/her on the show/in the book, that's why I fell in love with him/her". (This wasn't what I replied, btw; I usually told myself to see the reaction as a compliment and simply reply with "thank you" or "I'm glad you enjoyed the story".)
Why I am I reminded of this again? Because I suddenly find myself on the other side of the fence, so to speak. Not about a character I dislike, though. No, it's more complicated. Now, as a reader, I've experienced cases where someone else's stories made me reexamine canon and become more interested in characters I had overlooked. For example, Lennier on Babylon 5, whom I had liked fine during the original broadcast but had never paid much attention to and hadn't found that interesting. Later on, when after acquiring the B5 dvds I read fanfic by
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In conclusion: I'm not sure I have one, except that I'm frustrated, and wonder whether this is what readers felt when writing to me about other characters "I like your version of X, but..."