Some Fandom Things! (Journal Article, Couple of Stories, Wiki Page, Tolkien in VT)
I have been busy with fandom stuff over the past month or so. Some of this stuff is going to be old news to the people who are reading here. But for everyone else, here's a month's worth of fannish things!
First of all, my paper Affirmational and Transformational Values and Practices in the Tolkien Fanfiction Community has been published in the Journal of Tolkien Research. JTR is open-access, so you can read the whole thing for free. Yay, JTR!
The paper is the culmination of a lot of years of research and griping in fannish spaces that really originated with my observation, when I first started reading scholarly work about fanfiction, that much of my marginalia was along the lines of "Not Tolkien fanfiction!" I loved fan studies meta so much but felt like much of it wasn't about me and what I did. For the longest time, because of this sense, I focused on what made Tolkien fanfiction different from other fandoms' fanfiction, which was not the most productive approach, since that's comparing a single, very diverse entity to an enormously vast category (with tens of thousands of also very diverse entities) where every conclusion drew a ready exception. Instead, I started looking more at the theories in the scholarship and encountered the idea of affirmational/transformational fandom first put forth by obsession_inc, that places fanfiction largely within "transformational fandom." (Affirmational fandom values the original creator's authority, including the canon, while transformational values the fan's freedom to rework, reinterpret, and repair the original text based on the fan's own experiences.) I found that that didn't mesh well with my understanding of Tolkien fanfiction, which I see as a mixture of both types. (And to be clear, obsession_inc was not proposing a binary, but fan studies' work has leaned heavily toward the transformational.) So I dug a bit deeper into the research and found that, yes, my survey data, as well as other evidence, supported my sense, as a Tolkien fanfic writer myself, that we don't fit as comfortably on the transformational side as fan studies scholars have suggested of other fanfic. (I have my doubts there too, but I am not familiar enough with those fandoms to comment any deeper than that, so I'll let others do that work if they agree.) The article presents my research and conclusions that, ultimately, how we negotiate canon and authority and critical and reparative motives in our fandom is really complicated and shapes not only the stories we write but how we've built our communities.
Over December break, I finished two stories. First, I finished Home Alone: Forgotten in Formenos (SWG), my Silm/Home Alone crossover. This was rough, in the midst of losing Lancelot. I wrote the final 14K words in the two days before Christmas and did the "Battle Plan" map on Christmas. He was my constant companion in the study while I was working, so it was nice to finish it for him. I know Christmas is past, as is likely the taste for this story, but I'm still just happy I finished it. And hey, my sister-in-law listens to Christmas music year-round, so she can't be the only one who can tolerate jollitude outside the parameters of Thanksgiving-Epiphany that we impose in my family. It's also on my website and AO3.
I also wrote a Tolkien Secret Santa pinch hit for
fernstrike: Yule Lights (SWG). Here's the summary:
As the new lord of Ost-in-Edhil, Celebrimbor must preside over a Yule festivity lacking what he loved of the celebration when he was younger, elements that have become fraught by association with Fëanor, but Annatar has a surprise for him.
It's also on my website and AO3.
Fun-lovin' wild woman that I am, my treat to myself over December break was setting up a page on Fanlore for Tolkien Fanfiction. I just scratched the surface, then RaisingCain added more after me. But it's our page. Go add stuff, even a single sentence or link to a fanwork. Or much more than that. Go tame; go wild. Just know its ours for our history and everyone is welcome.
And finally, I'll be presenting again this year at the Tolkien at UVM conference, which is on April 4 at the University of Vermont. Anyone who is going or who might be interested, let me know!
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
https://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/444452.html
First of all, my paper Affirmational and Transformational Values and Practices in the Tolkien Fanfiction Community has been published in the Journal of Tolkien Research. JTR is open-access, so you can read the whole thing for free. Yay, JTR!
The paper is the culmination of a lot of years of research and griping in fannish spaces that really originated with my observation, when I first started reading scholarly work about fanfiction, that much of my marginalia was along the lines of "Not Tolkien fanfiction!" I loved fan studies meta so much but felt like much of it wasn't about me and what I did. For the longest time, because of this sense, I focused on what made Tolkien fanfiction different from other fandoms' fanfiction, which was not the most productive approach, since that's comparing a single, very diverse entity to an enormously vast category (with tens of thousands of also very diverse entities) where every conclusion drew a ready exception. Instead, I started looking more at the theories in the scholarship and encountered the idea of affirmational/transformational fandom first put forth by obsession_inc, that places fanfiction largely within "transformational fandom." (Affirmational fandom values the original creator's authority, including the canon, while transformational values the fan's freedom to rework, reinterpret, and repair the original text based on the fan's own experiences.) I found that that didn't mesh well with my understanding of Tolkien fanfiction, which I see as a mixture of both types. (And to be clear, obsession_inc was not proposing a binary, but fan studies' work has leaned heavily toward the transformational.) So I dug a bit deeper into the research and found that, yes, my survey data, as well as other evidence, supported my sense, as a Tolkien fanfic writer myself, that we don't fit as comfortably on the transformational side as fan studies scholars have suggested of other fanfic. (I have my doubts there too, but I am not familiar enough with those fandoms to comment any deeper than that, so I'll let others do that work if they agree.) The article presents my research and conclusions that, ultimately, how we negotiate canon and authority and critical and reparative motives in our fandom is really complicated and shapes not only the stories we write but how we've built our communities.
Over December break, I finished two stories. First, I finished Home Alone: Forgotten in Formenos (SWG), my Silm/Home Alone crossover. This was rough, in the midst of losing Lancelot. I wrote the final 14K words in the two days before Christmas and did the "Battle Plan" map on Christmas. He was my constant companion in the study while I was working, so it was nice to finish it for him. I know Christmas is past, as is likely the taste for this story, but I'm still just happy I finished it. And hey, my sister-in-law listens to Christmas music year-round, so she can't be the only one who can tolerate jollitude outside the parameters of Thanksgiving-Epiphany that we impose in my family. It's also on my website and AO3.
I also wrote a Tolkien Secret Santa pinch hit for
fernstrike: Yule Lights (SWG). Here's the summary:
As the new lord of Ost-in-Edhil, Celebrimbor must preside over a Yule festivity lacking what he loved of the celebration when he was younger, elements that have become fraught by association with Fëanor, but Annatar has a surprise for him.
It's also on my website and AO3.
Fun-lovin' wild woman that I am, my treat to myself over December break was setting up a page on Fanlore for Tolkien Fanfiction. I just scratched the surface, then RaisingCain added more after me. But it's our page. Go add stuff, even a single sentence or link to a fanwork. Or much more than that. Go tame; go wild. Just know its ours for our history and everyone is welcome.
And finally, I'll be presenting again this year at the Tolkien at UVM conference, which is on April 4 at the University of Vermont. Anyone who is going or who might be interested, let me know!
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
https://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/444452.html