the scars of your love leave me breathless.
I have thoughts about this. (To sum up: it's a TIME article about fanfic, especially focused on the Potter fandom, with some mentions of The Man From UNCLE, Star Trek, FF.net, the anti-fic crew [quotes from Anne Rice, Orson Scott Card, George RR Martin, and Ursula LeGuin], Wide Sargasso Sea and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, amongst other stuff.)
Granted, most of my thoughts, at the moment, are varying degrees of confusion or else me getting flail-y and emotional, then judging myself for it. On the one hand, the article acknowledges that it's only looking at a particular subset and at certain trends in fan-culture, so it can't purport to be talking about everyone in any fandom ever. It brings up certain stereotypes of fan-culture (see quoted passage below), mostly in order to discuss how said stereotypes are wrong, if you look at any overview of fandom participation.
On the other… I don't know. Something about it rubbed me the wrong way, but I sort of suspect that it's just: a. the 'Fandom 101 For ~Normal People' sort of tone, including the references to Greek mythology and the Aeneid (which were mostly right, but overlooked how Homer didn't make up the Trojan Cycle and its characters either; he just wrote the two poems we have that actually survived - and this strikes me as a completely "what the fuck" rookie mistake since… we have plays and other contemporary sources that outright say that other people were writing about these characters and yes, Virgil's primary inspiration was Homer, but aslkghgwr. Homer didn't invent the whole thing, what), and the kind of condescending attitude at the anti-fanfiction crew.
All the points against the anti-fanfiction crew were valid, and I agree with them. But I really, really don't think Lev Grossman's attitude at them was necessary. Sure, I don't agree with their anti-fic stance, and I don't think they can really control what people do… but fact is, they did create their stories and characters. And they're possessive of their creations. And acting like they're ~lol so unenlightened and ~trolol fighting the inevitable winds of change just because their opinion isn't the majority opinion…? Not necessary, not helpful, not okay.
Fan-fiction writers aren't guys who live in their parents' basements. They aren't even all guys. If anything, anecdotal evidence suggests that most fan fiction is written by women. (They're also not all writers. They draw and paint and make videos and stage musicals. Darren Criss, currently a regular on Glee, made his mark in the fan production A Very Potter Musical, which is findable, and quite watchable, on YouTube.) It's also an intensely social, communal activity. Like punk rock, fan fiction is inherently inclusive, and people spend as much time hanging out talking to one another about it as they do reading and writing it. "I've been in fandom since early 2005, when I was getting ready to turn 12," says Kelli Joyce. "For me, starting so young, fanfic became my English teacher, my sex-ed class, my favorite hobby and the source of some of my dearest friends. It also provided me with a crash course in social justice and how to respect and celebrate diversity, both of characters and fic writers.
Diversity: the fan-fiction scene is hyperdiverse. You'll find every race, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, age and sexual orientation represented there, both as writers and as characters. For people who don't recognize themselves in the media they watch, it's a way of taking those media into their own hands and correcting the picture. "For me, fanfic is partially a political act," says "XT." "MGM is too cowardly to put a gay man in one of their multimillion-dollar blockbusters? And somehow want me to be content with the occasional subtext crumb from the table? Why should I?"
... I picked this passage to quote because it pretty accurately sums up the decade or so I've spent in fandom. (I got in when I was 11, in mid-2001ish, because I found some various Potter and Sailor Moon fics that I liked reading, and I started writing my own with the intent of putting them on the Internet eventually. They were horrid, because I was eleven and, until then, had primarily been writing for my journal and pretty much only my journal, since no one in my real life expressed much interest in what I wrote, outside of occasionally teachers, and even if they had, my handwriting was terrible, so.)
And on a nod to my personal life: oh my god, I need to just take my mother's credit cards away. It's just… for fuck's sake, there is a really simple way to avoid needing to return crap you don't need and thus avoid having to worry about a bill at the end of the month. It's called don't buy the shit in the first place.
Granted, I'm particularly frustrated with her right now because: a. we're in an unspoken war for dominance over the kitchen table, which is apparently primo work space (she likes the access to the fridge, I like the access to the TV); and b. after I hit the 'post' button, I have to go out and run errands for her that she should absolutely be able to do herself, except that she doesn't ~feeeel like it*. They're not huge or anything, but the bigger problem I have here is that she sees any writing I do, fandom or otherwise, as completely worthless because I'm not the next JK Rowling right the fuck now, nor do I want to be.**
She suffers from this notion that, because writing is creative and not "hard" (as in the difference between hard sci-fi [the kind with hardcore science going on] and soft sci-fi [the kind where science isn't as important as the social criticism]), there's really no work involved in it. Like, I'm pretty sure she expects metaphors like, "Writing is easy. You just sit down at a typewriter and open a vein," or Athena springing from Zeus's skull fully-formed, or the Muses to be literal. Or almost literal. And since she doesn't perceive any work, that means it's not there, right? And since it's not there, well, obviously she's well within her rights to shit on me and my preoccupations, since it's all playtime and not work.
And then there's how I just tossed off the, "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow, a mystery. But today is a gift, that's why it's called a present," line from Kung Fu Panda because she will not stop reminiscing about my childhood, specifically things I was too young to really remember. She does it at least twice a day, and it's all just making me feel like, "Well, you know… I'm sort of touched that you're sorry you sort of fucked off and abandoned your family when I was a kid… but if you really care about having a relationship with me, I'm right here, right now, and I'm not an infant. I don't like the things I did when I was three. Why don't you try connecting with me outside of our annual weekend in Stratford, seeing plays for cheap and talking about how you need the plot of Shakespeare plays explained for you at the intermission?"
I mean, I'd also recommend that she stops being emotionally manipulative, emotionally abusive, and a general twatwaffle, but hey. She expects us to just have a relationship and for me to do pretty much all of the legwork on it, and… yeah, no. Not happening.
*: and as you know, obviously, I over here with the depressive disorder never don't ~feeeel like doing something but do it anyway because I get threatened with, oh I don't know, "I'll cut off your tuition if you don't drop everything you're doing and cater to me right now," or, "obviously, your psychiatrist is full of crap for not making you 'better' in a way that I define, so I'll stop paying her and you'll go see someone I choose." You know… just for example.
**: Strictly speaking, I'd rather be the next Thomas Pynchon or JD Salinger, just because I enjoy the idea of being so massively successful that I can pay people to leave me alone. Like, my mother's family, for instance. It's not that I'm a misanthrope like them - I'm actually pretty fond of humanity in general terms, even though they routinely make me want to smack my forehead against something hard - but… social contact and I aren't friends. When I have the chance to interact with people primarily on my terms, damn right, I'll be taking that. Like, my never going to happen ideal universe would be one wherein I had a private island with perfect weather where a handful of my best friends and I could live away from the stress and problems of mainstream society, and come and go as we pleased. Since this is for various reasons impossible, though, I will settle for a bunker.
Granted, most of my thoughts, at the moment, are varying degrees of confusion or else me getting flail-y and emotional, then judging myself for it. On the one hand, the article acknowledges that it's only looking at a particular subset and at certain trends in fan-culture, so it can't purport to be talking about everyone in any fandom ever. It brings up certain stereotypes of fan-culture (see quoted passage below), mostly in order to discuss how said stereotypes are wrong, if you look at any overview of fandom participation.
On the other… I don't know. Something about it rubbed me the wrong way, but I sort of suspect that it's just: a. the 'Fandom 101 For ~Normal People' sort of tone, including the references to Greek mythology and the Aeneid (which were mostly right, but overlooked how Homer didn't make up the Trojan Cycle and its characters either; he just wrote the two poems we have that actually survived - and this strikes me as a completely "what the fuck" rookie mistake since… we have plays and other contemporary sources that outright say that other people were writing about these characters and yes, Virgil's primary inspiration was Homer, but aslkghgwr. Homer didn't invent the whole thing, what), and the kind of condescending attitude at the anti-fanfiction crew.
All the points against the anti-fanfiction crew were valid, and I agree with them. But I really, really don't think Lev Grossman's attitude at them was necessary. Sure, I don't agree with their anti-fic stance, and I don't think they can really control what people do… but fact is, they did create their stories and characters. And they're possessive of their creations. And acting like they're ~lol so unenlightened and ~trolol fighting the inevitable winds of change just because their opinion isn't the majority opinion…? Not necessary, not helpful, not okay.
Fan-fiction writers aren't guys who live in their parents' basements. They aren't even all guys. If anything, anecdotal evidence suggests that most fan fiction is written by women. (They're also not all writers. They draw and paint and make videos and stage musicals. Darren Criss, currently a regular on Glee, made his mark in the fan production A Very Potter Musical, which is findable, and quite watchable, on YouTube.) It's also an intensely social, communal activity. Like punk rock, fan fiction is inherently inclusive, and people spend as much time hanging out talking to one another about it as they do reading and writing it. "I've been in fandom since early 2005, when I was getting ready to turn 12," says Kelli Joyce. "For me, starting so young, fanfic became my English teacher, my sex-ed class, my favorite hobby and the source of some of my dearest friends. It also provided me with a crash course in social justice and how to respect and celebrate diversity, both of characters and fic writers.
Diversity: the fan-fiction scene is hyperdiverse. You'll find every race, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, age and sexual orientation represented there, both as writers and as characters. For people who don't recognize themselves in the media they watch, it's a way of taking those media into their own hands and correcting the picture. "For me, fanfic is partially a political act," says "XT." "MGM is too cowardly to put a gay man in one of their multimillion-dollar blockbusters? And somehow want me to be content with the occasional subtext crumb from the table? Why should I?"
... I picked this passage to quote because it pretty accurately sums up the decade or so I've spent in fandom. (I got in when I was 11, in mid-2001ish, because I found some various Potter and Sailor Moon fics that I liked reading, and I started writing my own with the intent of putting them on the Internet eventually. They were horrid, because I was eleven and, until then, had primarily been writing for my journal and pretty much only my journal, since no one in my real life expressed much interest in what I wrote, outside of occasionally teachers, and even if they had, my handwriting was terrible, so.)
And on a nod to my personal life: oh my god, I need to just take my mother's credit cards away. It's just… for fuck's sake, there is a really simple way to avoid needing to return crap you don't need and thus avoid having to worry about a bill at the end of the month. It's called don't buy the shit in the first place.
Granted, I'm particularly frustrated with her right now because: a. we're in an unspoken war for dominance over the kitchen table, which is apparently primo work space (she likes the access to the fridge, I like the access to the TV); and b. after I hit the 'post' button, I have to go out and run errands for her that she should absolutely be able to do herself, except that she doesn't ~feeeel like it*. They're not huge or anything, but the bigger problem I have here is that she sees any writing I do, fandom or otherwise, as completely worthless because I'm not the next JK Rowling right the fuck now, nor do I want to be.**
She suffers from this notion that, because writing is creative and not "hard" (as in the difference between hard sci-fi [the kind with hardcore science going on] and soft sci-fi [the kind where science isn't as important as the social criticism]), there's really no work involved in it. Like, I'm pretty sure she expects metaphors like, "Writing is easy. You just sit down at a typewriter and open a vein," or Athena springing from Zeus's skull fully-formed, or the Muses to be literal. Or almost literal. And since she doesn't perceive any work, that means it's not there, right? And since it's not there, well, obviously she's well within her rights to shit on me and my preoccupations, since it's all playtime and not work.
And then there's how I just tossed off the, "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow, a mystery. But today is a gift, that's why it's called a present," line from Kung Fu Panda because she will not stop reminiscing about my childhood, specifically things I was too young to really remember. She does it at least twice a day, and it's all just making me feel like, "Well, you know… I'm sort of touched that you're sorry you sort of fucked off and abandoned your family when I was a kid… but if you really care about having a relationship with me, I'm right here, right now, and I'm not an infant. I don't like the things I did when I was three. Why don't you try connecting with me outside of our annual weekend in Stratford, seeing plays for cheap and talking about how you need the plot of Shakespeare plays explained for you at the intermission?"
I mean, I'd also recommend that she stops being emotionally manipulative, emotionally abusive, and a general twatwaffle, but hey. She expects us to just have a relationship and for me to do pretty much all of the legwork on it, and… yeah, no. Not happening.
*: and as you know, obviously, I over here with the depressive disorder never don't ~feeeel like doing something but do it anyway because I get threatened with, oh I don't know, "I'll cut off your tuition if you don't drop everything you're doing and cater to me right now," or, "obviously, your psychiatrist is full of crap for not making you 'better' in a way that I define, so I'll stop paying her and you'll go see someone I choose." You know… just for example.
**: Strictly speaking, I'd rather be the next Thomas Pynchon or JD Salinger, just because I enjoy the idea of being so massively successful that I can pay people to leave me alone. Like, my mother's family, for instance. It's not that I'm a misanthrope like them - I'm actually pretty fond of humanity in general terms, even though they routinely make me want to smack my forehead against something hard - but… social contact and I aren't friends. When I have the chance to interact with people primarily on my terms, damn right, I'll be taking that. Like, my never going to happen ideal universe would be one wherein I had a private island with perfect weather where a handful of my best friends and I could live away from the stress and problems of mainstream society, and come and go as we pleased. Since this is for various reasons impossible, though, I will settle for a bunker.