Here's a meta question re: fanfic.
(Crossposted from this post in my lenadances account.)
I am having a weird feeling about fanfic these days. I keep reading all this stuff that goes dramatically AU, and/or uses original characters, and I think, why the heck are we all still here? why still so dependent on other peoples' universes? I mean... so damn many of us are so damn good at this, sometimes a lot better than the source material deserves; why are we still stuck to the source material at all? Add to that the ever-looming thought-- brought up at times like these, when LJ becomes an uncertain host-- that fanfic is a tenuous existance when we're writing about other people's stuff.
Then I try working on my original stuff, and it's weird and depressing to be the only kid in the sandbox; it lacks that community fun, the thrill of seeing what other people do with the same ruleset and universe and (well, most of the time) characters, the excitement of being able to see the same material through so many different points of view, the joy of building on the ideas that others have had and then seeing your new ideas incorporated into someone else's work down the line. I mean, there's good things about it, too, but I keep missing the group aspect. It feels like... not only that I'm missing friends, but that I'm missing half my brain.
Here's the thing: I keep vaguely wondering if there's a way to both be able to get the good parts of both situations. If there could be a way to do an original, group-spawned universe, a sandbox built by fic writers, for fic writers, where other fic writers are the ones who created the characters and the rules, and where the original character or twist that you write one week may be used in some horrific (or awesome) manner by another writer the next week.
Is that even possible? Would anyone even want to do it, or would it turn into hiatus-boredom times a million, with no new influx of canon? (Granted, that might be a good thing, considering how often we feel that shows shoot themselves in the foot.) The big question is, are fic writers-- even en masse-- up to that sort of thing, or are we just a bunch of lazy gits who sit around waiting for the next installment to make our brains work? Considering how much "fanon" develops, and the way that someone always turns out to be willing to work out all the details on something that the TV shows we watch have sort of skimmed over, I know we're not lazy-- but are we that pro-active?
Hell, how would it work? Where would we even start? Is there enough of a common jones for certain universe-traits that one could be created? Do we long for space, or zombies (whoops, I take it back, I know we love zombies) and supernatural monsters, or post-apocolypse? The future, or the current day-- only just a little different-- or some unsung past? Do we want a heavy-handed authority to rebel against, or the chance for our characters to create order out of chaos? What kind of heroes do we long to write?
How could we organize it? Would we have to keep creation-access of the 'verse to a set group of writers-- and if so, how would people be added or kicked out, and on what terms? How would canon be created? Could such a thing even have canon? Would there be any way to keep things from spinning out of control-- community-driven controls like (in very different ways) the "trusted users" and troll-ratings on dKos, or the wacky regulation of Wikipedia?
Seriously, I want to know. I want to know from EVERYONE. In a world where Wikipedia has somehow turned into the go-to source for definitions, surely there's a way to have a group-spawned original universe; I think we would just need to figure out how.
I am having a weird feeling about fanfic these days. I keep reading all this stuff that goes dramatically AU, and/or uses original characters, and I think, why the heck are we all still here? why still so dependent on other peoples' universes? I mean... so damn many of us are so damn good at this, sometimes a lot better than the source material deserves; why are we still stuck to the source material at all? Add to that the ever-looming thought-- brought up at times like these, when LJ becomes an uncertain host-- that fanfic is a tenuous existance when we're writing about other people's stuff.
Then I try working on my original stuff, and it's weird and depressing to be the only kid in the sandbox; it lacks that community fun, the thrill of seeing what other people do with the same ruleset and universe and (well, most of the time) characters, the excitement of being able to see the same material through so many different points of view, the joy of building on the ideas that others have had and then seeing your new ideas incorporated into someone else's work down the line. I mean, there's good things about it, too, but I keep missing the group aspect. It feels like... not only that I'm missing friends, but that I'm missing half my brain.
Here's the thing: I keep vaguely wondering if there's a way to both be able to get the good parts of both situations. If there could be a way to do an original, group-spawned universe, a sandbox built by fic writers, for fic writers, where other fic writers are the ones who created the characters and the rules, and where the original character or twist that you write one week may be used in some horrific (or awesome) manner by another writer the next week.
Is that even possible? Would anyone even want to do it, or would it turn into hiatus-boredom times a million, with no new influx of canon? (Granted, that might be a good thing, considering how often we feel that shows shoot themselves in the foot.) The big question is, are fic writers-- even en masse-- up to that sort of thing, or are we just a bunch of lazy gits who sit around waiting for the next installment to make our brains work? Considering how much "fanon" develops, and the way that someone always turns out to be willing to work out all the details on something that the TV shows we watch have sort of skimmed over, I know we're not lazy-- but are we that pro-active?
Hell, how would it work? Where would we even start? Is there enough of a common jones for certain universe-traits that one could be created? Do we long for space, or zombies (whoops, I take it back, I know we love zombies) and supernatural monsters, or post-apocolypse? The future, or the current day-- only just a little different-- or some unsung past? Do we want a heavy-handed authority to rebel against, or the chance for our characters to create order out of chaos? What kind of heroes do we long to write?
How could we organize it? Would we have to keep creation-access of the 'verse to a set group of writers-- and if so, how would people be added or kicked out, and on what terms? How would canon be created? Could such a thing even have canon? Would there be any way to keep things from spinning out of control-- community-driven controls like (in very different ways) the "trusted users" and troll-ratings on dKos, or the wacky regulation of Wikipedia?
Seriously, I want to know. I want to know from EVERYONE. In a world where Wikipedia has somehow turned into the go-to source for definitions, surely there's a way to have a group-spawned original universe; I think we would just need to figure out how.