linkspam has meta
"Rugby is dangerous enough when you don't have a broom stuck between your legs," said Birgir, and we nodded in agreement. The story of the Outside Magazine Partially Icelandic Quidditch World Cup team.
Noted for later reading: re-introducing moral philosophy into conversations about market forces.
Also noted: the surge in get-rich-quick scams online.
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Alyssa Rosenberg asks, does fanfiction actually make us more creative? I can't read the comments right now, but I suspect the answer is, as always: it depends. It depends whether you're reading or writing; it depends upon why you're doing it; it depends on how one defines "creative".
Is it more creative to write a high school AU than to spent 40,000 words exploring someone's sexual identity? Is mashing together His Dark Materials with the fandom-of-the-day more creative than adding zombies to the mix? Could a story be uncreative in the writing but inspire creativity in the reader? (And isn't that what Remix is about?)
I don't see that fanfiction is necessarily less creative than original fiction, except in the limited sense that original science fiction and fantasy generally require a certain amount of world-building, which is not obligatory for fanfiction. Although some fanfiction certainly has a lot of world-building, and some of that is superior to the world-building in the original canon (and even in original fiction).
People do argue that fanfiction is inherently less creative because it doesn't require one to invent original characters; except neither, really, does original fiction. The bulk of the characters in published novels are as poorly-developed and derivative as Sheppard and McKay in your run-of-the-mill SGA story--it's just that the reader of original fiction doesn't have the common background to fill in the gaps in the characterizations.
One problem, really, is that there is no bright line between fanfiction and original fiction. The movie The Avengers serves as both fanfiction and original fiction, canon and transformative text, straddling both categories and, somehow, satisfying the desires of both the pre-existing fans of the franchise and those who are new to it. Is Joss Whedon more creative than
dira, because he has to meet all of Hollywood's expectations with regard to form and content? Or is
dira more creative, because she's less concerned with resource constraints?
The other problem is the definition of creativity. I don't know how creativity can be defined or measured: it's, in many ways, an entirely objective factor, and regardless of one's output, we can't know what's going on inside someone's head. That someone doesn't produce anything of great originality doesn't mean there isn't a ton of creative processing going on, just that they don't have the technical skill to share it.
I'm reduced to pointing at the little boy at the end of St. Elsewhere, who, with little external indicators, is shown to have a vast and sprawling interior life, full of creativity.
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In related news, Brain Pickings has a children's book about creativity. And also has an entry on Mark Twain on originality & plagiarism.
Law & The Multiverse examines whether Pepper Potts needs a zoning variance for Stark Tower. Gotta love some planning geekery.
Best review of The Avengers ever!
More seriously, Abigail Nussbaum has a brilliant post about an unexamined cost of producing the new "gritty" television: just as dead horses are the cost of doing business in the racing industry, traumatized and humiliated actresses are the cost of doing business in cable television.
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Outside has an interview with the one woman who has summitted all 14 of the world's 8,000-meter peaks without oxygen: Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner.
It's the 40th anniversary of Title IX: ESPN has some advice on how to celebrate that.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments; comment here or there.
Noted for later reading: re-introducing moral philosophy into conversations about market forces.
Also noted: the surge in get-rich-quick scams online.
*
Alyssa Rosenberg asks, does fanfiction actually make us more creative? I can't read the comments right now, but I suspect the answer is, as always: it depends. It depends whether you're reading or writing; it depends upon why you're doing it; it depends on how one defines "creative".
Is it more creative to write a high school AU than to spent 40,000 words exploring someone's sexual identity? Is mashing together His Dark Materials with the fandom-of-the-day more creative than adding zombies to the mix? Could a story be uncreative in the writing but inspire creativity in the reader? (And isn't that what Remix is about?)
I don't see that fanfiction is necessarily less creative than original fiction, except in the limited sense that original science fiction and fantasy generally require a certain amount of world-building, which is not obligatory for fanfiction. Although some fanfiction certainly has a lot of world-building, and some of that is superior to the world-building in the original canon (and even in original fiction).
People do argue that fanfiction is inherently less creative because it doesn't require one to invent original characters; except neither, really, does original fiction. The bulk of the characters in published novels are as poorly-developed and derivative as Sheppard and McKay in your run-of-the-mill SGA story--it's just that the reader of original fiction doesn't have the common background to fill in the gaps in the characterizations.
One problem, really, is that there is no bright line between fanfiction and original fiction. The movie The Avengers serves as both fanfiction and original fiction, canon and transformative text, straddling both categories and, somehow, satisfying the desires of both the pre-existing fans of the franchise and those who are new to it. Is Joss Whedon more creative than
dira, because he has to meet all of Hollywood's expectations with regard to form and content? Or is
dira more creative, because she's less concerned with resource constraints?
The other problem is the definition of creativity. I don't know how creativity can be defined or measured: it's, in many ways, an entirely objective factor, and regardless of one's output, we can't know what's going on inside someone's head. That someone doesn't produce anything of great originality doesn't mean there isn't a ton of creative processing going on, just that they don't have the technical skill to share it.
I'm reduced to pointing at the little boy at the end of St. Elsewhere, who, with little external indicators, is shown to have a vast and sprawling interior life, full of creativity.
*
In related news, Brain Pickings has a children's book about creativity. And also has an entry on Mark Twain on originality & plagiarism.
Law & The Multiverse examines whether Pepper Potts needs a zoning variance for Stark Tower. Gotta love some planning geekery.
Best review of The Avengers ever!
More seriously, Abigail Nussbaum has a brilliant post about an unexamined cost of producing the new "gritty" television: just as dead horses are the cost of doing business in the racing industry, traumatized and humiliated actresses are the cost of doing business in cable television.
*
Outside has an interview with the one woman who has summitted all 14 of the world's 8,000-meter peaks without oxygen: Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner.
It's the 40th anniversary of Title IX: ESPN has some advice on how to celebrate that.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments; comment here or there.