we unleashed a lion
With this rewatch of BSG I'm doing, I am once again marathoning episodes like there's no tomorrow - I tend to do that when I am interested, and when a story is compelling enough to keep me wanting to know what's going to happen next. When I used to read novels more frequently, *sigh* I would often end up staying up way too late - just one more chapter! Oh, it's only 100 pages until the end! - because of that need to know.
The upside to this approach is that as long as there is source to feed the hunger, I am happy, and will walk around hollow-eyed for days because I've spent all my spare time mainlining story and immersing myself in the fictional world until way too late, even though I know I have to be up for work in the morning. And there is the rush of that immersion, which is really fantastic.
The downside, I think, is that I lose a lot of the details. BSG packs a lot of stuff into these episodes, and there's always so much going on at once. I STILL can't tell you what happened in which episode most of the time - it becomes a big blur of OMG! STARBUCK! ADAMA! HELO! - and it makes it hard for me to absorb the canon in any meaningful way, which makes it hard to discuss and formulate theories, and also hard to write about. I kind of feel like the first season and a half of BSG is so tight it doesn't really NEED fanfic - possibly if I were shipping Lee/Kara (or any other pairing), I'd feel different about that, but since I don't, I am mostly satisfied with what canon gives us. Which doesn't mean I don't read fic, but I don't really need it. What it really means is that I can't figure out how to write fic in this 'verse.
When I hit that stretch of season 2 where things go terribly wrong, I possibly might suddenly see the openings I need to write. Certainly the time gap at the end of season 2, and between season 2 and season 3, leaves a lot of open space, and even for the kinds of stories I like to tell, and with a pairing that I like (Kara/Anders) even if I am not OMG OTP about them. Though it is only the retroactive knowledge of Anders' season 3 awesomeness that really reconciled me to the pairing. (which, well. I am glad I'm not OTP about it, all things considered. *snerk*)
I think it's much harder for me to get a handle on the canon because it is so complicated, and I don't really have an easy in to any character's head. And it's not a canon I find easy to live in in my head. Like, I can sit on the bus and think about Sam and Dean for hours. I could do the same with Firefly, with HP, etc. But BSG is bleak from nearly every angle, where even the alleged happy endings inevitably end badly.
When I first did mainline BSG, back in January 2006, I tried to figure out whether it was a better way for me to consume media, and concluded that while it's a great ride while it lasts, in terms of actually being able to be thoughtful about a show, it works less well for me.
Now, having the experience of doing the same thing with other shows, and being able to write them pretty quickly afterwards, I think maybe it's not so much the nature of my canon intake (that quick devouring inhale) so much as the complexity of BSG's canon in particular (and my unwillingness to live in it long enough to really feel it out). There's a lot more to BSG - more characters, more relationships, more plot, more history, more everything - and it's dizzying and intimidating.
I kind of feel the same about The Wire. It's so dense and complex (and fantastically written), it doesn't really need fanfic, and also, I have no idea where it would fit, whose POV I'd write from, if I could capture the feel of canon, even without delving too far into that complexity. And also, it's fucking depressing as hell.
Huh. I guess that's kind of my answer then. It's not so much the means of delivery as it is the nature (and emotional tenor) of the canon. Hmm...
***
The upside to this approach is that as long as there is source to feed the hunger, I am happy, and will walk around hollow-eyed for days because I've spent all my spare time mainlining story and immersing myself in the fictional world until way too late, even though I know I have to be up for work in the morning. And there is the rush of that immersion, which is really fantastic.
The downside, I think, is that I lose a lot of the details. BSG packs a lot of stuff into these episodes, and there's always so much going on at once. I STILL can't tell you what happened in which episode most of the time - it becomes a big blur of OMG! STARBUCK! ADAMA! HELO! - and it makes it hard for me to absorb the canon in any meaningful way, which makes it hard to discuss and formulate theories, and also hard to write about. I kind of feel like the first season and a half of BSG is so tight it doesn't really NEED fanfic - possibly if I were shipping Lee/Kara (or any other pairing), I'd feel different about that, but since I don't, I am mostly satisfied with what canon gives us. Which doesn't mean I don't read fic, but I don't really need it. What it really means is that I can't figure out how to write fic in this 'verse.
When I hit that stretch of season 2 where things go terribly wrong, I possibly might suddenly see the openings I need to write. Certainly the time gap at the end of season 2, and between season 2 and season 3, leaves a lot of open space, and even for the kinds of stories I like to tell, and with a pairing that I like (Kara/Anders) even if I am not OMG OTP about them. Though it is only the retroactive knowledge of Anders' season 3 awesomeness that really reconciled me to the pairing. (which, well. I am glad I'm not OTP about it, all things considered. *snerk*)
I think it's much harder for me to get a handle on the canon because it is so complicated, and I don't really have an easy in to any character's head. And it's not a canon I find easy to live in in my head. Like, I can sit on the bus and think about Sam and Dean for hours. I could do the same with Firefly, with HP, etc. But BSG is bleak from nearly every angle, where even the alleged happy endings inevitably end badly.
When I first did mainline BSG, back in January 2006, I tried to figure out whether it was a better way for me to consume media, and concluded that while it's a great ride while it lasts, in terms of actually being able to be thoughtful about a show, it works less well for me.
Now, having the experience of doing the same thing with other shows, and being able to write them pretty quickly afterwards, I think maybe it's not so much the nature of my canon intake (that quick devouring inhale) so much as the complexity of BSG's canon in particular (and my unwillingness to live in it long enough to really feel it out). There's a lot more to BSG - more characters, more relationships, more plot, more history, more everything - and it's dizzying and intimidating.
I kind of feel the same about The Wire. It's so dense and complex (and fantastically written), it doesn't really need fanfic, and also, I have no idea where it would fit, whose POV I'd write from, if I could capture the feel of canon, even without delving too far into that complexity. And also, it's fucking depressing as hell.
Huh. I guess that's kind of my answer then. It's not so much the means of delivery as it is the nature (and emotional tenor) of the canon. Hmm...
***