on nicknaming characters
My contact lenses are at that stage where they need to be changed months ago, all gritty and blurry and nasty, and I'm feeling irritable because I actually have to do work instead of surfing through all the discussions in cathexys' fabulous LJ (if you're interested in meta and you don't have her friended yet, you're even more behind the times than I am). Then minnow1212 posts a query about the use of nicknames in fanfic (it's locked, I think) and, because this is something I've been meaning to rant about for some time, I push everything else to the back burner and go for it.
Nicknames. You know. Delia for Cordelia. Mione for Hermione. And according to Minnow, Zira for Aziraphale (haven't read Good Omens, but even so I can still see how this would be irritating as hell).
I said to Minnow, "Hate the nicknames. HATE them. I wish I could round up all such offenders in fandom and interrogate them ruthlessly about what causes this extremely disturbing phenomenon. Grrr."
And it's disturbing to me because it's a particular brand of author fantasy/masturbation that I can really live without seeing, you know? I mean, maybe I know from their smut that Author A's personal kink is rimming and Author B's is biting, but those kinks are, to me, fine and dandy to know about. Why? Maybe because for all people bemoan the "any two guys" syndrome, sexual acts fuck with characterizations far less than actually renaming characters, or forcing other characters to rename them (e.g., Angel calling Cordelia Delia, Harry calling Hermione Mione) according to whatever the author conceives of as True Love.
(Note: It's possible I'm more forgiving of sexual kinks because I think anyone can be different in bed, or because I get off on the kinks too, whatever. I like sex. I like reading about sex. I don't like reading about characters the author has kidnapped and decided to dress up like dolls. It's my opinion, I'm ranting.)
Nicknaming characters is an offensive sort of masturbation because, frankly, I can think of no better example of an author blithely running off to frolic in her own little field of daisies and blatantly ignoring canon than this. Reading a story where the characters give each other cutesy nicknames to show affection for each other when they don't do it in canon is like being dragged by the author into her own private drippy little peepshow. It's almost more porny than actual porn, you know? Suddenly you see the dark underbelly of what people really come to fandom for, this sad schmoopy need to have characters making love with candles and easy listening and calling each other soulmates as they bring each other to mutual fulfillment.
It simplifies who these characters are. It makes them suddenly the property of a particular author and her desires -- rather than of the source material or fandom at large -- in a way that fanfic itself, as an appropriation of the source for our own purposes, does not. It makes the characters unrecognizable to me, and I really, really dislike that.
Now that I've thoroughly wedged my foot inside my mouth, back to work.
Nicknames. You know. Delia for Cordelia. Mione for Hermione. And according to Minnow, Zira for Aziraphale (haven't read Good Omens, but even so I can still see how this would be irritating as hell).
I said to Minnow, "Hate the nicknames. HATE them. I wish I could round up all such offenders in fandom and interrogate them ruthlessly about what causes this extremely disturbing phenomenon. Grrr."
And it's disturbing to me because it's a particular brand of author fantasy/masturbation that I can really live without seeing, you know? I mean, maybe I know from their smut that Author A's personal kink is rimming and Author B's is biting, but those kinks are, to me, fine and dandy to know about. Why? Maybe because for all people bemoan the "any two guys" syndrome, sexual acts fuck with characterizations far less than actually renaming characters, or forcing other characters to rename them (e.g., Angel calling Cordelia Delia, Harry calling Hermione Mione) according to whatever the author conceives of as True Love.
(Note: It's possible I'm more forgiving of sexual kinks because I think anyone can be different in bed, or because I get off on the kinks too, whatever. I like sex. I like reading about sex. I don't like reading about characters the author has kidnapped and decided to dress up like dolls. It's my opinion, I'm ranting.)
Nicknaming characters is an offensive sort of masturbation because, frankly, I can think of no better example of an author blithely running off to frolic in her own little field of daisies and blatantly ignoring canon than this. Reading a story where the characters give each other cutesy nicknames to show affection for each other when they don't do it in canon is like being dragged by the author into her own private drippy little peepshow. It's almost more porny than actual porn, you know? Suddenly you see the dark underbelly of what people really come to fandom for, this sad schmoopy need to have characters making love with candles and easy listening and calling each other soulmates as they bring each other to mutual fulfillment.
It simplifies who these characters are. It makes them suddenly the property of a particular author and her desires -- rather than of the source material or fandom at large -- in a way that fanfic itself, as an appropriation of the source for our own purposes, does not. It makes the characters unrecognizable to me, and I really, really dislike that.
Now that I've thoroughly wedged my foot inside my mouth, back to work.