FIC: The Chuck Writes Story - Afterword 5

[lettered]

Title: The Chuck Writes Story: Afterword 5
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: gen. Chuck, Becky
Rating: PG-13 for themes
Length: Total fic: 30,000. This part: 2,000
Summary: Castiel is the new BNF in town. Lettered is amused.
A/N: Please see notes here.
Previous parts: The Chuck Writes Story part 1 and part 2 | Afterword | Afterword 2 | Afterword 3

Comments

Re: whoops got long...

[bulletcourier]

Don't worry. Incest is a game the whole family can play.

*pratfall*

I think if I felt guilty about all of them I'd go stark raving. So I decided I can really only feel guilty about the way I act (which is plenty fuel enough!)

I aspire to get to the place you're at someday ;A;/

Seriously. It's hard for me to reconicle the sexual element with the fact that Supernatural's be-all-end-all value placed on family fulfils some fandom need, some kind of resonance or cuttingly deep relatability I didn't realise I was missing in series more based on friendship or romance or comrades or what have you. I used to think this one particular fic in another fandom was amazing because it actually made me cry. Now, I can't even count how many Supernatural fics have made me cry, they hit me in such a way.

I know theoretically it's fine to ship Sam and Dean, you know, the specific characters with their specific story... but it's hard to forget how many parallels there are to my whole life which my brothers themselves gleefully point out all the time, and how am I supposed to feel about us cosplaying them for halloween... and there's the guilt and shame creeping back :P

I'm so stupidly in love with this show and this fandom, though, so I think I'll have time to work through it. And besides, it's probably good for me, helping me understand myself a bit better. So maybe in that light... the wincest-poking meta stuff was good for my personal growth?? Ahahaha

If you're making translations in order that others may consume the thing you love, I'd think you'd want to go for the author's version of the text. If you want to do something transformative, you go for your own.

It's interesting, though. Like, I try really hard to make it as close to the author's version as possible... but at the same time, I can only guess at their intentions from the text they produced using the limited cutlural and metalinguistic knowledge I have. It's not like they're sitting there with me explaining their thought processes to me, so how close can I be? The comics and novelisations of the game are the trickiest. Some fans translate more like localisation, adding details of their own and changing the flow of the story to match a Western expectation of what a novel scene should be like. Whereas my versions are almost to-the-letter, and look so much bonier and stilted in English than they really would come off in the original cultural context. I used to worry so much about whether that was important. Does atmosphere count as author intention too? With time I guess I found a standard I felt comfortable holding myself to and I just strive for that.

And it's weird, because to me, there is such a distinction, and yet not the distinction that some authors, or some of those who are anti-fanfic, like to draw. The author's story is theirs and people shouldn't try to change it or make money off of it or say they know the one true meaning. But your reading is yours, and that's very precious.

Absolutely! Figuring that out is how I grew up and learned not to be so annoyed with people I thought were 'misreading' the text. For example, there are a lot of fangirls who seem to have a very different image of the characters than I do, and the me from only a while ago would be compiling wanky essays at them full of episode script quoting and what have you. I still get those twinges, especially when I see fans like that calling the version onscreen OOC when things happen that they don't like. But, now I think I understand that the version of the character that lives in their heart means a lot to them, has likely helped them make friends and learn things and create things and grow just like I know some characters have for me, and they have every right to feel that and love that version of them, even if I don't see them on my television. And, in the end, the version I 'see on my television' is really just the version in my own heart, too...

Which is why I just do not understand anti-fanfic mentality. Where do you draw the line between anti-transformative and anti-imagination? Whether you post it online or not? Doesn't seem like that really cuts it, to me.