~~ the fanfic reader's dilemma
Nov. 12th, 2004 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaYou know what's beautiful? Fanfic. I love fanfic-- reading it, I mean. I love getting to know the same character over and over again, seeing certain things change while others remain the same-- seeing the same themes be explored again and again with slight and sometimes huge variations.
I love seeing the same issue (or character) from a thousand subtly different angles, and I love how the Story is never really over, because really, good stories shouldn't-- couldn't-- end. And with fanfic, no story ends. No one really dies. Your favorite characters' first kiss can happen again and again in ways you yourself would never have envisioned if you wrote them. Everything familiar is made unfamiliar-- you never know what's up for grabs. It's a story that's both utterly familiar and utterly unpredictable. I just love it.
And it's brilliant when you can read a fanfic all the way through (all the way!!) without thinking 'he'd -never- do -that-' or 'he'd never think -that-' or 'they would NEVER EVER IN A MILLION TRILLION YEARS do -that-'. Yes, that is sheer bliss.
And of course it's accepted wisdom that you're supposed to know & care deeply about the canon behind whichever fandom/pairing you're currently reading, fanfic-wise, but you know.... I think the dark, ugly truth is-- the more you know, the less you enjoy. It becomes a question of 'truth' vs. 'lies'-- rather than everything being some degree of... y'know... pretty lie. But very pretty-- and largely necessary if one fancies pairings which are inherently, well, impossible in canon and are thus fanon by definition (...like H/D).
I really think that the fanfic reader is a unique sort of fan-- regardless of their attitude to the canon source of whichever fandom they're currently reading in. I think if you're into reading fanfic, even if you care about canon accuracy, it seems that you will still implicitly priviledge fanon. And by 'fanon' I mean, you will priviledge the constant shifting of possibility of what can happen over the static actuality of what -has- happened. If as a reader, you're not prepared to do that, with any given pairing or fandom, you'll quickly realize that the great majority of fanfic doesn't hold much appeal.
And so, at base level-- much as I'm a stickler for plausible extrapolation-- I'm that kind of fan. In the end, I care about the range of possibility most, and most especially, I want to be surprised as a reader. I realize I've reached some sort of apex of fannish discontent when no fic with my OTP has the ability to really -startle- me anymore. My most harsh criticism would be-- I know where you're going, even though it makes no actual sense.
I've realized there might be a -reason- my happiest times with reading H/D were the year before I'd actually read canon and officially knew enough to realize that most of the stuff I'd enjoyed so much was really kinda crappy if you saw it mainly as an extension of canon. Here I feel compelled to say I still knew -enough- canon for my purposes, merely from picking it up here & there. I mean, I don't precisely regret reading the books, because I do love canon Harry too much to ever regret meeting him-- even if it cost me the pleasure of a thousand fanfics I might otherwise have loved.
I mean, the conundrum is such: the great majority of fanfic will always be crappy, for nearly any pairing. You can either suck it up and enjoy it (clearly easier the more ignorant you are) or you can not read. And what's the point of not reading and being secure in one's superior understanding of canon? Where's the pleasure in that, especially if you're a compulsive reader above all other things (such as myself)?
I mean, a little knowledge of canon helps you know what's going on as far as the fanfics you read, yes-- but it seems to be that a true love of fanfic and of canon cannot truly coexist, because if you're a voracious fanfic reader (as I am-- since whenever I'm a reader of anything, I'm voracious) then you have to deal with the fact that you're dealing mainly in fanon, especially in a pairing that is kind of... outside canonical plausibility like a) slash & b) rival-slash. Indeed, perhaps there's a greater likelihood to be more wild 'fanon' inventiveness in fic with a rival-slash pairing than a more 'conventional' one, since you'd have to stretch plausibility more to make it happen-- and yet, isn't that challenge itself fascinating?
I think one has more fun with fanfic if one sort of... has a mental veil cast over the source material. Either one is largely ignorant or easily forgetful. And people are always surprised (or just confused) that I've been one or the other in most of the fandoms I've ever read fic for, but-- where's the fun in beating your head against the keyboard 'cause someone makes your favorite character into someone else?
Perhaps it should simply be acknowledged as a default truth-- all fanfic has to be OOC to some significant extent. The less you care (and not knowing better is surely connected to not caring), wouldn't it make sense that you're more able to enjoy what's there? And it's not a question of complete ignorance, because that lessens enjoyment simply because you'd be confused-- it's more.... The more you think (and write) about what you know of canon, the more you pin it down, and the more definitive your notion of 'canon' becomes.
When we read or watch TV or movies-- most people don't pay that much attention to the details, even if they're really enjoying themselves. They get the gist of it, sure, but I don't think they could really write a very good report on 'just the facts, Ma'am' unless they thought about it & tried. And the more you try to confine even a particular aspect of story to quantifiable facts, the more it becomes captive to that version of the facts. It becomes marked, like a book which always falls open in the same places. It becomes predictable, and hostile to any fanonical remaking.
Generally speaking, my favorite pairings sprang up in fandoms where I knew -some- canon, but it was incomplete and shrouded in time (meaning, I'd last seen it or thought about it years or at least months ago). After that freshness of memory fades, fanon has a chance to appear... fascinating, so the reader thinks of it as a unique twist instead of a horrible misreading of The Truth. A twist that would surprise (and therefore delight) a reader rather than frustrate them with the sheer inaccuracy of its invention.
I was thinking this especially lately, reading a slew of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lupercali's & mousapelli's & juliefortune's & casirafics' & librae's & then ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
switchknife's Sirius and Remus characterizations-- and they all worked for me in comparable measure, though Prufrock's writing is still my favorite. This, even though I could come up with characterization quibbles for them all (...well, except librae) if I wanted-- but I don't. I can just put them out of my mind in favor of intensifying my enjoyment of the things that work best for me. Oh, joy!
That's such a freeing, liberating feeling-- like-- a deep relaxing breath. It's not that I have -no- standards, obviously, but that really, my boundaries are pretty loose with these characters. I know the general canon, but it's not an ever-present grind inside my head, the way -I- think these characters should be. I couldn't write a fic myself that easy-- which is a relief, actually, because it means I don't really have that much of a clue. It's great!
I've gotten to the point, basically, where it's really hard for me to enjoy others' H/D fics. To the point where I often forget why am I bothering to read them and why do I even -care-. And then I read something-- likeshaggirl's latest drabbles-- and remember, and am glad-- but this is in comparison to the vast majority of stuff written, which is starting to make me gag (or scream at people that they're wrong! wrong! wrong!!). Too much, too much, too much. Everything feels so old and tired, too familiar, too obvious. These characters are so close to me they're starting to feel like a cancerous growth or something. The more time passes, I feel a sort of almost proprietary affection for Harry and a greater and greater discontent with most people's Draco (JKR included). I love, still, Aspen's & Maya's & Cassie's & Kassie's & Silvia's & Miss Breed's-- but gods, that's it. I don't think I can love anyone else's-- the circle is closed. It just feels old. And tired. And I still love them, like one loves one's wounds, but jeez. I can see down to their bones and entrails, and that's knowing too much.
Perhaps, also... unlike Sirius/Remus, say, my obsession with Harry/Draco has always been about me, and... maybe I'm starting to actually move on past that place where I needed them to talk about me. Where I needed to talk about me through them at all. Maybe I really am finally over my own stupid bad boy, huh. (...Or maybe... I'm just a different person now, too... and can at least play with others for a while. I mean, 'obsessed for life' sounds too much like a prison sentence, anyway.)
So. Viva le new fandom! (Or Sirius/Remus... close enough for now, at least.)
~~
Anyway, I'm seriously loving on the S/R fics at the moment. W00t! Feels so new & shiny, yeay! I made another Sirius/Remus art.com doodle from sheer squee, though it's nothing special.
In other news, I saw `Garden State' last night, and it rocked out. Well, especially in the musical sense. Electronica is so the new rock, ahahahah.
I love seeing the same issue (or character) from a thousand subtly different angles, and I love how the Story is never really over, because really, good stories shouldn't-- couldn't-- end. And with fanfic, no story ends. No one really dies. Your favorite characters' first kiss can happen again and again in ways you yourself would never have envisioned if you wrote them. Everything familiar is made unfamiliar-- you never know what's up for grabs. It's a story that's both utterly familiar and utterly unpredictable. I just love it.
And it's brilliant when you can read a fanfic all the way through (all the way!!) without thinking 'he'd -never- do -that-' or 'he'd never think -that-' or 'they would NEVER EVER IN A MILLION TRILLION YEARS do -that-'. Yes, that is sheer bliss.
And of course it's accepted wisdom that you're supposed to know & care deeply about the canon behind whichever fandom/pairing you're currently reading, fanfic-wise, but you know.... I think the dark, ugly truth is-- the more you know, the less you enjoy. It becomes a question of 'truth' vs. 'lies'-- rather than everything being some degree of... y'know... pretty lie. But very pretty-- and largely necessary if one fancies pairings which are inherently, well, impossible in canon and are thus fanon by definition (...like H/D).
I really think that the fanfic reader is a unique sort of fan-- regardless of their attitude to the canon source of whichever fandom they're currently reading in. I think if you're into reading fanfic, even if you care about canon accuracy, it seems that you will still implicitly priviledge fanon. And by 'fanon' I mean, you will priviledge the constant shifting of possibility of what can happen over the static actuality of what -has- happened. If as a reader, you're not prepared to do that, with any given pairing or fandom, you'll quickly realize that the great majority of fanfic doesn't hold much appeal.
And so, at base level-- much as I'm a stickler for plausible extrapolation-- I'm that kind of fan. In the end, I care about the range of possibility most, and most especially, I want to be surprised as a reader. I realize I've reached some sort of apex of fannish discontent when no fic with my OTP has the ability to really -startle- me anymore. My most harsh criticism would be-- I know where you're going, even though it makes no actual sense.
I've realized there might be a -reason- my happiest times with reading H/D were the year before I'd actually read canon and officially knew enough to realize that most of the stuff I'd enjoyed so much was really kinda crappy if you saw it mainly as an extension of canon. Here I feel compelled to say I still knew -enough- canon for my purposes, merely from picking it up here & there. I mean, I don't precisely regret reading the books, because I do love canon Harry too much to ever regret meeting him-- even if it cost me the pleasure of a thousand fanfics I might otherwise have loved.
I mean, the conundrum is such: the great majority of fanfic will always be crappy, for nearly any pairing. You can either suck it up and enjoy it (clearly easier the more ignorant you are) or you can not read. And what's the point of not reading and being secure in one's superior understanding of canon? Where's the pleasure in that, especially if you're a compulsive reader above all other things (such as myself)?
I mean, a little knowledge of canon helps you know what's going on as far as the fanfics you read, yes-- but it seems to be that a true love of fanfic and of canon cannot truly coexist, because if you're a voracious fanfic reader (as I am-- since whenever I'm a reader of anything, I'm voracious) then you have to deal with the fact that you're dealing mainly in fanon, especially in a pairing that is kind of... outside canonical plausibility like a) slash & b) rival-slash. Indeed, perhaps there's a greater likelihood to be more wild 'fanon' inventiveness in fic with a rival-slash pairing than a more 'conventional' one, since you'd have to stretch plausibility more to make it happen-- and yet, isn't that challenge itself fascinating?
I think one has more fun with fanfic if one sort of... has a mental veil cast over the source material. Either one is largely ignorant or easily forgetful. And people are always surprised (or just confused) that I've been one or the other in most of the fandoms I've ever read fic for, but-- where's the fun in beating your head against the keyboard 'cause someone makes your favorite character into someone else?
Perhaps it should simply be acknowledged as a default truth-- all fanfic has to be OOC to some significant extent. The less you care (and not knowing better is surely connected to not caring), wouldn't it make sense that you're more able to enjoy what's there? And it's not a question of complete ignorance, because that lessens enjoyment simply because you'd be confused-- it's more.... The more you think (and write) about what you know of canon, the more you pin it down, and the more definitive your notion of 'canon' becomes.
When we read or watch TV or movies-- most people don't pay that much attention to the details, even if they're really enjoying themselves. They get the gist of it, sure, but I don't think they could really write a very good report on 'just the facts, Ma'am' unless they thought about it & tried. And the more you try to confine even a particular aspect of story to quantifiable facts, the more it becomes captive to that version of the facts. It becomes marked, like a book which always falls open in the same places. It becomes predictable, and hostile to any fanonical remaking.
Generally speaking, my favorite pairings sprang up in fandoms where I knew -some- canon, but it was incomplete and shrouded in time (meaning, I'd last seen it or thought about it years or at least months ago). After that freshness of memory fades, fanon has a chance to appear... fascinating, so the reader thinks of it as a unique twist instead of a horrible misreading of The Truth. A twist that would surprise (and therefore delight) a reader rather than frustrate them with the sheer inaccuracy of its invention.
I was thinking this especially lately, reading a slew of
lupercali's & mousapelli's & juliefortune's & casirafics' & librae's & then switchknife's Sirius and Remus characterizations-- and they all worked for me in comparable measure, though Prufrock's writing is still my favorite. This, even though I could come up with characterization quibbles for them all (...well, except librae) if I wanted-- but I don't. I can just put them out of my mind in favor of intensifying my enjoyment of the things that work best for me. Oh, joy!That's such a freeing, liberating feeling-- like-- a deep relaxing breath. It's not that I have -no- standards, obviously, but that really, my boundaries are pretty loose with these characters. I know the general canon, but it's not an ever-present grind inside my head, the way -I- think these characters should be. I couldn't write a fic myself that easy-- which is a relief, actually, because it means I don't really have that much of a clue. It's great!
I've gotten to the point, basically, where it's really hard for me to enjoy others' H/D fics. To the point where I often forget why am I bothering to read them and why do I even -care-. And then I read something-- like
shaggirl's latest drabbles-- and remember, and am glad-- but this is in comparison to the vast majority of stuff written, which is starting to make me gag (or scream at people that they're wrong! wrong! wrong!!). Too much, too much, too much. Everything feels so old and tired, too familiar, too obvious. These characters are so close to me they're starting to feel like a cancerous growth or something. The more time passes, I feel a sort of almost proprietary affection for Harry and a greater and greater discontent with most people's Draco (JKR included). I love, still, Aspen's & Maya's & Cassie's & Kassie's & Silvia's & Miss Breed's-- but gods, that's it. I don't think I can love anyone else's-- the circle is closed. It just feels old. And tired. And I still love them, like one loves one's wounds, but jeez. I can see down to their bones and entrails, and that's knowing too much.Perhaps, also... unlike Sirius/Remus, say, my obsession with Harry/Draco has always been about me, and... maybe I'm starting to actually move on past that place where I needed them to talk about me. Where I needed to talk about me through them at all. Maybe I really am finally over my own stupid bad boy, huh. (...Or maybe... I'm just a different person now, too... and can at least play with others for a while. I mean, 'obsessed for life' sounds too much like a prison sentence, anyway.)
So. Viva le new fandom! (Or Sirius/Remus... close enough for now, at least.)
~~
Anyway, I'm seriously loving on the S/R fics at the moment. W00t! Feels so new & shiny, yeay! I made another Sirius/Remus art.com doodle from sheer squee, though it's nothing special.
In other news, I saw `Garden State' last night, and it rocked out. Well, especially in the musical sense. Electronica is so the new rock, ahahahah.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 12:36 am (UTC)Yeah... I think that the whole making-statements thing is a sign you're not really connecting with the story & trying to -make- it go somewhere instead of really going places with it. Ideally, things should just -happen-... which is hard in a letters fic (...I remember my first attempt at an HP fic was a diary-fic... which is similar... and boy was that a disaster of self-consious whining of mammoth proportions).
I think it's a question of being -ready- to write the Fic Of Your Dreams at some point... like, after you've picked apart pieces of it, and thought about the dynamic to the point where you don't have to -think- & it just flows naturally. Like, you won't need faith anymore-- won't need to rationalize-- 'cause it'd just be -there-. How they -are-. Takes practice playing with them though. But at least they're pretty when they're nekkid :>
no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 12:51 am (UTC)I think you're right, though. Well, I know you're right, cause lately I've been really frustrated with my writing in general. I mean, I don't want to force anything, and usually my writing evolves on its own anyway. Like, one day you just come back to a story you'd given up as a lost cause, because you realize that it could work, for (X reason) that you'd never thought of before. It's like selectively giving up, but only for a while, or something. So, like. I'm not even aiming for the fic of my dreams at this point (that's probably a long way off, IF it ever happens, haha). I'm just aiming for something that doesn't suck, right, cause I aim high. Except not. Heh. You speak from experience, though, so I'm just listening. :)
I think for the time being I should just read all the lovely things that are out there, cause it's so easy to angst over one's own writing and so much better to just read stuff & appreciate it.