Meta meta SNAKE

[channonyarrow]

Okay.

This is something that has bugged me for-fucking-ever, and that most authors, I think, don't actually, consciously think about. Hell, I don't like to think about it, if only because anthropology as a discipline has gone so ass-over-teakettle about identifying potential ~influences on one's work that you practically can't get to the essay

Comments

[jamethiel_bane]

HOKAY. You don't know me yet, so: I like discussing/arguing things. I try to communicate clearly, but generally exist on about 3-4 hours sleep a night so often don't succeed

[channonyarrow]

Hey, I am coming from the same limitation re: clearly speaking, so we will just have to muddle through. *g*

I see where you're coming from, and to some extent I agree with it, but I also have two major arguments against it. One is that there is very good information available on each of the people I've spoken about - sinsense did an excellent writeup on Bert, riorhapsody, adellyna have both taken on William, airgiodslv wrote up William and Gabe, and...someone I don't remember wrote up Gabe. The information that I'm basing my statements on here exists. It's not hidden, it's just ignored. Some of that is because these three bands are relatively minor - I think that's also part of why Brendon gets a pass - but some of it, I think, is because people buy into the idea that you need dramatic tension, ergo you need a villain, and then you get fic like harriet_vane's Forever, Now, which, while overall quite good and enjoyable, automatically slots Bert in (as a larger boy!) as the villain who beats up Gerard and everyone else, uses his position of privilege to cause trouble, and uses

[jamethiel_bane]

Hmmmm. I guess that my reading pattern/experience of fandom has been different than yours. Because I started out reading the manifestos you describe, don't tend to read much MCR except for Cimorene's Absence... etc, I am not as conscious of the trope

[channonyarrow]

Duuude, no. It is NEVER a problem to "spam" my journal, seriously. I didn't write 8 pages in Word to have it just go unresponded to.

I get where you're coming from about engaging with canon. I swore blind a few years back that I would never, ever, ever get into an RPS fandom, and here I am, neck-deep and sinking! My new current line, having just recently broken the LAST one, is that I won't write fic about a person I've talked to; I figure that within six weeks I'll be writing hardcore Mikey/Siska or something. I also don't watch TV or DVDs; I have movies I really really want to see that I've owned for two or three years that aren't out of the shrinkwrap. Not a TV oriented person, me. And I kind of come from the same place with the music: I go to the shows, sometimes with people and sometimes by myself, and I'm in fandom, essentially all by my widdle self. The only person I've gone to a show with who's in fandom is sparkfrost; the person I've gone to more shows with is not in bandom and never will be, so it's a really separate place

[apiphile]

The general bandom attitude towards Bert (ugh he's smellyyyyyy - yeah, and Gee not washing for weeks at a time on tour, he was so fragrant) does cement my opinion of a virginal mentality in most fandoms; a lot of fen seem to be judgemental little shits when it comes to addictions (hi, I say this as a former addict) will bend over backwards to accommodate problems they're more sympathetic with. Personally while I can definitely see my own parallels with Gee's epic angst, I was a speed freak, not a coke addict, and I only wish I'd met people as nice as Bert seems capable of being.

[Thought occurred, will have to chase Jess: am now interested in a Gabe-POV Thursdayverse fic. Just to see what his side of the story is].

Ugh, I had more to say but I plead the "it's not even 5am yet" clause.

[swear_jar]

You'd better believe that I've been thinking about Thursday-verse Gabe since reading channonyarrow's rants about cliche!evil!Gabe.

I totally played on a fandom stereotype with him in that fic, but to be fair, they're all villians with the very rare exception, it's just whose POV you're looking through at the time.

I like to think Andy's not a perfectly reliable narrator, too. He got hurt, definitely, really badly-- but he could very easily have "deserved" whatever it was (that's right, I totally hadn't thought that far ahead. Fail. The MCR side of that 'verse? I know everything! The FOB side? Everything! Everyone else? Uhm).

[apiphile]

The thing is the him you have there fits with the world they're in - I mean FFS, it's not like anyone else is particularly lovely there - and yeah, we only have Andy's POV and [cough] Joe's POV which is filtered through what Andy's told him. I'm more interested than ever now to know what happened with the whole Gabe/Andy thing and vaguely thinking it's probably equally each other's faults and both are just blaming the other because MATURITY IS RARELY THE STRONG POINT OF THE BROKENHEARTED.

Er, in conclusion, I <3 unreliable narrators to the max.

[channonyarrow]

I do want to point out - this is something I didn't say in the above post because I wasn't actually sure it would fit as a post - my god I talk a lot - that there's a HUGE difference between your recasting of them for Thursday-verse, or formerlydf's use of them in her sociopath AU: you are claiming from the word boo that they're all off normal and you're not making one of them ~worse than the others for the purpose of dramatic tension. I'm not giving you a free pass here, I'm saying that what you do for your stories is not what some other people do do, which is villainise one person so that everyone else has someone to bounce off of and look perfect next to. Frankly, I find sociopath AUs hawt, and that's my kink, but I am not saying 'Well, you're my friend, so you can do what you like but everyone else better snap the fuck up." I'm saying that people need to figure out why they've chosen to demonise who they have, and it plays a lot better to me if more than one person in the fic is a baddie than it does when Bert goes around beating kids up

[swear_jar]

I'm going to put my hand up as someone who isn't particularly middle class or highly educated! Woo. Though I do agree with you, the majority of fandom I know has been to college/university, or is currently there, and seems to be from relatively well-off backgrounds.

Your meta is iiiiiinteresting.

but about stuff like labelling based on sexual orientation he makes all of FBR look like the shyest straight boys to ever walk the earth.

Ahahaha! I try and tell people that The Used leave every other bandom band in the dust for being utterly gay for each other and NOT AT ALL scared to show it, but people seem to think P. Weezy and MCR are the epitome of okay-to-be-gay. Your guys. Frank kissed Gerard once. It was pretty tame. Please to be youtubing the TEN THOUSAND videos of Bert and Quinn making out on stage. A lot. FOR EXAMPLE.

[apiphile]

LIIIINKS.

[swear_jar]

OF COURSE:

Making ouuut. Bert's little hair-tuck afterwards is ridiculous and adorable and so girly it hurts.

Has Bert's typical little spiel about kissing the person next to you. Ignoring the random crowd people making out around the one minute mark, I also love how they play "Blue & Yellow" after that (not that you can hear it really well), because Bert apparently wrote that for Quinn.

Here's Bert proposing to Quinn, just for shits and giggles.

This is easier than picspamming that various pics of them kissing on each other.

And various other videos go here.

People still squee about the one time Frank kissed Gerard onstage and I'm like. GUYS. GUYS SERIOUSLY. THE USED GUYS. HAVE YOU SEEN THEM OR WHAT.

[channonyarrow]

I will watch with interest your links! I will argue that so far as I know, Projekt Gaymolution wasn't called that because Frank and Gerard stood on opposite sides of the stage and had nothing to do with each other, but of the five times I've seen MCR, I have seen zip gay, stage or otherwise, and I have seen them at their very, very, very best, so far as I'm concerned, in terms of putting on a show - I went to the Portland, Oregon shows last year, one of which was on Gee's birthday, and that show was AMAAAAAAZING; I've also gone to a very small secret show of theirs.

I don't know how that fits, about you not being middle class/highly educated. I feel like, to a certain extent, my judgement of middle class/educated here is more based around the usage of the internet for leisure time than anything; it's not a perfect structure, but it's not totally a bad one. I don't know you very well yet, though, so I might be saying something wildly offensive with that; it's not my intent.

[jkivela]

:sigh:

A big, long, interesting looking post that could eat up at least 20 minutes of my hellish time at work, and I have no idea what/who you are talking about.

:(

[channonyarrow]

Oh, I'm bitching about bandom meta: William is the singer for The Academy Is..., Gabe's the singer for Cobra Starship, Bert's the singer for The Used, and Brendon's the singer for Panic At The Disco. In bandom writing, the first three are just seen totally as demons, and it annoys me to no end because they are, so far as I can tell, genuinely nice, genuinely caring, genuinely sweet people, but they're not OMG SO BIG NAME like Panic At The Disco is so OBVIOUSLY they're eeeeeevil boys.

Not that that helps to introduce/explain anything, but, you know. It's just super meta from a conversation I've been having with apiphile and swear_jar. I'm unsure whether to try to get traffic on it from bandom or to just run and hide and assume that this is better than letting people watch me slag off their fics.

[jkivela]

Oh, I figured it was bandom, all I have to look for is MCR in your post and Id know that. Still don't know enough details to make an intelligent comment, or even a snide remark though.

no worries :)

[channonyarrow]

Oddly, this might be the one piece of meta I would be really concerned about trying to use as an "all fandoms do X" sort of post, because RPS does have that - well, that rather eponymous Real Person doing their stuff, and that's not something Potterverse or non RPS verses face, imo. If something doesn't make sense in another fanfic verse, you can say that it's probably to do with the original creator of the work, but RPS really has some problems because its subjects make seemingly-incomprehensible decisions that do, at the end of the day, have to make some degree of sense.

[jencendiary]

Oh, hi. I'm a friend-of-friend and I had to come in and basically spray OMGWTFGABRIEL on your journal.

Or, if you like titles, In Defense of Gabe Saporta:

Because Gabe leaks his issues out of every pore. Lyrics, interviews, all of it. His father was a doctor, an actual physician in Uruguay. And I'm not familiar with the standard of living there, but I assume it's higher for a physician in Uruguay than for an unskilled laborer in New Jersey. So, Gabe comes from there to the US with his family and goes from being one class to a dramatically different one AND learning a new language AND being an elementary/middle schooler all at the same time. This is big scary stuff

[channonyarrow]

See, that fits so completely with where I was coming from about this! I mean, I don't know Gabe very well in even a fannish context because I had to give up something in order to have time to eat, so interviews etc are gone. But sorting through the fannish interpretation and the actuality, this would fit well with what I think is true of Gabe, and I think you've said it very nicely - he's not gonna go hungry again. I mean, I know I didn't make that point in this post, but it fits in with the whole thing about Being From Jersey, because that is one WEIRD sGalong when you look at the rest of Cobra's catalogue, and I'm not even talking about the way in which it's recorded.

You know what? I bet he is a big mess (I mean, okay, that's kind of for stylistic purposes, because it's kind of obvious that he IS a big mess) and I bet he thinks he's a sellout, but I unironically love and admire him as much as it's humanly possible to love and admire someone who I've never even talked to. He, and his band, are fantastic performers, and they all

[jencendiary]

Also, Being From Jersey is the world's most obvious Nirvana pastiche. Musically speaking, that is. And if that doesn't just say a frillion things about his state of mind post-Midtown/pre-Cobra, in the wake of Warped '05 and the Emo Takeover of Pop Culture, I don't know what does.

[channonyarrow]

I'm not clear what you mean by Nirvana pastiche (pastiche is a word that I actually am never able to retain the definition of, for some reason). Do you mean in terms of the way that Rape Me and Smells Like Teen Spirit are the same song, just the one's slowed down and reworked to, lyrically, make a statement and musically be referential to the thing it is, uh, stating, or do you mean something else? I find Being From Jersey a very interesting song.