[a rant a day keeps the bile away...]
Oct. 18th, 2006 11:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaI was talking to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blacksatinrose earlier about why is it people seem to care so much whether whatever fannish opinion [especially ship-related] they have is 'popular' or not... and my idea at the time was that we have a desire for community validation.
EDIT - Though actually we were talking about why people getpsycho bent out of shape about it so maybe that doesn't quite apply, but anyway....
So um, I was asking myself why -I'd- care whether I have popular or unpopular opinions in fandom-- and I realized that generally it's about subjects that seem to produce the kind of writing/reading environment I don't want to be a part of, maybe. The more popular a certain opinion is-- say 'writing IC isn't important 'cause fun = all that matters' or 'ICness = completely subjective so it's irrelevant as a label'-- the more it'll influence what sort of fic you see. The underlying meta that's around may not directly influence fandom, but it's a -product- of fandom influence, so if I see a lot of discussion that leans a certain way, chances are that's the sort of fic that's out there. If I don't want to read fic written with those meta underpinnings, however well-written, then my problem is more with the meta than with a particular fic, isn't it?
I mean, this is about meta, not a fic, right, and I can't help caring when many people disagree with this: hi, ICness? Is real. It EXISTS.
It's not totally subjective (though neither is it totally objective). It's not an exact science, obviously, it being literary criticism and not biochem, but the problem with literary criticism is actually that people get away with saying 'anything goes' in terms of interpretation. This is why I remember sitting in Tolkien class listening to some academics' interpretations of the books and thought OMFG, ALL THESE PEOPLE ARE ON SO MUCH CRACK. :/ And this is why I was too bloody embarrassed to be an English major, y'know? That much wanking can't be healthy. :/
I mean, hey. It's okay-- I didn't lose sleep over it; I'm okay-- you're okay. Being on crack is okay; I dig it. No hurt feelings; knock yourself out. But it doesn't change the fact that you are, you know, on it. What I care about-- what I can't stand-- is when people dismiss it as an issue altogether.
What I'm saying is, I wouldn't care if ICness -were- totally subjective (though I don't think so); I think that an attitude that is rigorous and -tries- to figure canon out as objectively as possible before writing a fic would consistently be more likely to produce fic I think is worth reading for other reasons. I think it's about sitting down and asking yourself why -you- think character X acts in such-and-such a fashion, in canon or in your own fic-- and I think the more you do that, the more you build a mental framework that has a logical/canon basis just because that's easiest to back up with existing behavior patterns. It's not about cutting off fancy or experimentation at all-- it's just about -caring- about that basic framework that supports the overall [HP] 'verse, which is another name for 'canon'.
I don't care about labelling whoever's fic IC or OOC; that's a case by case issue and there's too much ego involved to tell head from tail in those discussions. All I care about in terms of the meta is seeing that the writer cares about canon, no matter their bloody interpretation. People seem so ready to get up all in arms about whoever's supposedly badmouthing their fic (oh noes!) that they sort of sidestep the whole issue of fannish investment. I care about ICness because I AM A FAN: not a slash fan, not a Harry/Draco fan, just a somewhat serious/analytical fan. This is normal [as far as I'm concerned]. It's not freakishly uptight, it's not anti-slash, and it's not even elitist or whatever. I'm not oppressing anyone; I'm not randomly projecting my uber-subjective/delusional fanon fantasies onto someone else's fic [the idea makes me gag, actually]; I'm not making it up to make things difficult for anyone or to ruin anyone's enjoyment. This doesn't reflect my own personal view of 'canon'-- it reflects my need for a certain process that sort of... touches upon canon as a starting point (even if you're using it to overwrite/ignore).
In other words, let me make this very clear: in a very real way, I don't care whether I disagree with a fic on whether Draco actually stomped on Harry's face in HBP because he was just having a bad day or for revenge for sluggifying or because he's kinky like that or whether he's likely to do it again: I just want the explanation being used to make sense [you know, common sense? yeah, that]; I don't care where the fic goes from this or any other starting point in canon. In my experience, when I think something's OOC as I'm reading it's because something logically just-- doesn't follow, and this happens a lot in the HP fics I've read [often that are otherwise well-written].
If A doesn't follow B, it throws me out of the fic: you can't just do whatever you want in fanfic with no repercussions because, you know, it's FANFIC. So if you have glaring logical discrepancies, that's a real problem and most likely in terms of characterization, it's OOC. You can't say 'anything goes' or 'it's up to your taste' in terms of any fictional behavior, because um, people in general aren't random, y'know? And neither are the characters actually puppets made to dance to your whims (I mean, you can go ahead and treat them that way, it's fine, it's just that they aren't like that). Sorry.
What I want is acknowledgment of the pattern that includes a) canon facts; b) canon relationships; c) characters' canon responses to said events/relationships. I want a systematic continuity; why else would one read fanfic and not original fic? D'oh. Yeah dude, that's what ICness means.
The fact that some people in fandom use it to mean 'I dun like ur fic!!1' is not my problem and it doesn't actually affect what 'ICness' means. Just because there are subjective people misusing concepts [subjectively] doesn't make the concepts themselves either entirely subjective or irrelevant. I've liked plenty of fics I'm totally aware are OOC, man. In fact, the fics I've liked that are IC are in the vast minority simply because IC H/D is in the vast minority, so there. :P Saying something's OOC isn't a personal slam against an author or an emotional response-- it's an observation made because I've put some thought into the characterizations involved, thank you very much.
If I wanted to make a [negative] personal response, I myself would just say something sucked donkey egg-noodles & leave it without needing any half-assed justification, because I'm just that self-confident, man. :P (Or not.) Point is, a reasoned critique != a negative personal response. Especially when someone actually says 'this is what's OOC because of such-and-such' rather than just saying 'OOC! OOC! run! run!'-- I mean, I only do that with my friends, and I personally don't even bother critiquing specific fics anyway, so. :/ But talking about critique and what's a valid crit and who's qualified or not is a whole 'nother dead horse, not to mention it deviates from my actual point, which is-- hey, ICness as a valid concept for fanfic actually exists! This isn't my floofy "personal opinion", popular or not: I'm saying this is a provable theory, based on [given canon] facts. Yeah, 'cause I'm just badass like that. :/
Basically, yeah, you can't have Harry secretly jerk off to Draco right when he was canonically jerking off to Ginny [pretty much] without labelling it AU. You cannot have him actually have a crush on Draco [in HBP] without same; more subtly, you can't ignore the fact that these various incidents [the sluggifying, the stomping, etcetc] that occurred between these two characters OCCURRED and have SOME consequence and meaning. They don't -all- need to be dealt with all the time [though it'd be nice, it'd get monotonous] 'cause that's unrealistic; all I'm saying is that ICness is about the fic's overall awareness of the relevant events to the stuff it -does- deal with.
Hey, JKR herself isn't so good with that sometimes [sayyyy... the Sirius+Harry thing] but if I say JKR's not-so-great with these sort of things but then, she's writing for plot-- what's the character writers' loophole?
Mind you, I barely even read [HP] fic anymore, but funny how even reading fics for shows I've never watched [like Sentinel] or watched only a little [like Highlander], I can still tell when the writer is being rigorous and cares about canon. You know how I can tell?
I can tell because they reference canon events and not to explain away why X woke up this morning with a hard-on for Y [yes, I mean all those HBP fics]; I can tell because there is a -process- of getting from point A in the beginning, with a bunch of little references to other people [not villified or caricaturish! wow!] to point B in the end, where there is slash. There's a cookie in the end, but we start from 'no cookie' and a believable-sounding [straight!] character. This, to me, is close enough to the Nature of Classic Slash. It involves cookies & people starting out straight [...and getting a bit lost along the way], that's all I'm sayin'. The rest is applicable to any kind of fanfic.
The process/method reads in a consistently similar manner even when I don't even -know- the canon-- it's just the structure of the fic. In this sense, I don't even care if their canon facts are -wrong- because of this classic slash progression from zero to hero & all the little references that add dimension. It's the dimension-- the process I want.
So basically, I think you can't have IC PWP porn if you don't both know the fandom's canon pretty well [the reader & the writer]-- and in that sense, it's subjective, yeah. But that's specifically the nature of PWPs, not fanfic itself. PWPs rely on the reader to supply lots of background and motivation and the best [IC] ones would leave hints/spaces open to slot in believable initial scenarios and go from there-- plus the behavior/speech would remain recognizable. You're left with emotional states to build on [are they friends? strangers? enemies?] and speech patterns, but that's still a lot if you're good at it. Which. Most people aren't, but. Yes.
Um, so my 'conclusion' is that I really only get bent out of shape when things are discussed as 'just opinion', popular or not, when I don't consider them to be. Since I don't think the existence of ICness vs OOCness is totally subjective, discussing it as such is just incorrect, the way it would be incorrect to seriously discuss how those funky weird people like their funky e-vo-lu-tion when OBVIOUSLY-- obviously!-- the world was created by elephants. In Japan. These elephants, they sat in Japan at the dawn of time & they thought, hey [they thought], why not create the universe? It already exists anyway, so it's no biggie. And thusly! THE WORLD WAS BORN. Or something. So. Yeah, that kind of opinion rubs me the wrong way, somehow.
~~
Ermm... this is [once again] not the post I wanted to write; the rant just... took me like it always does on this subject.... This is not the rant you're looking for :/ Restart, restart, reboot.... Damn, no energy. I pretty much blew my writerly wad already, but... must-- mention-- actually-- interesting-- subject-- must not-- give-- in....
Oh yeah, I've been reading 'Benighted' by Kit Whitfield, which is based around a what-if: what if 99% of the world was werewolves, with only a very few humans, and those humans took care of the werewolves on the night of the full moon?
This actually set me off on an interesting tangent 'cause there's a Q&A session and a 'reader's guide' at the back of the book [which I found V. V. ANNOYING, but] where Kit Whitfield says, in response to a question about what genre the book is, that genre is just for bookstore marketing & doesn't describe real books suffiently & keeps people from reading wider and finding things they might otherwise like. All of which is true as far as it goes, but....
I was thinking about how muddied genre lit has become, most especially sci-fi, because basically there's so much color-by-numbers crap written for it that it's pretty much choking the life from the genre. In this case, I think it's important to define & celebrate what makes that genre what it is, because it's a good thing-- it's an important thing, the concept of writing fiction about ideas. And that's what sci-fi can be-- what sci-fi should be. Speculative fiction based around extrapolating from a single futuristic or unusual or technologically-advanced idea-- writing about the impact of ideas on humanity. Writing about what it really means to be human when reality itself changes, using a scientific [rational & observational] approach.
Also, I feel it's important to add that the 'science' in 'science fiction' doesn't have to mean -physics- or computers. It can be psi stuff [psychology], weird/alien culture stuff [anthropology] or terraforming [ecology/biology], etc.
People think 'sci-fi' means robots & spaceships or else cyber-technology or extremely twisted future worlds & dystopias-- judging from most of what I see published, people think it's about the props. But science fiction-- to me-- it's exactly what Kit Whitfield wrote. It's taking a really strong, vivid questioning idea [what if most humans were werewolves?], and following that through to its logical end conclusion, while hopefully retaining a sense of wonder & mystery of the unsolvable. Now, fantasy can also contain strong what-if ideas, but it's not fantasy if it's built systematically and consistently around that single aberration as a focus. If the world is recognizable in process if not in fact, then I think it's science fiction. Fantasy messes a lot more with process, basically-- the only thing it leaves alone is the individual [to the point where dragons are pretty likely to be anthropomorphized in fantasy], whereas in a lot of ways sci-fi is more likely to change the meaning of 'human' & 'individual' but then remain logical within the repercussions.
Anyway, reading 'Benighted'-- a book about humans & werewolves-- reminded me why I loved sci-fi as a teenager :D
blacksatinrose earlier about why is it people seem to care so much whether whatever fannish opinion [especially ship-related] they have is 'popular' or not... and my idea at the time was that we have a desire for community validation. EDIT - Though actually we were talking about why people get
So um, I was asking myself why -I'd- care whether I have popular or unpopular opinions in fandom-- and I realized that generally it's about subjects that seem to produce the kind of writing/reading environment I don't want to be a part of, maybe. The more popular a certain opinion is-- say 'writing IC isn't important 'cause fun = all that matters' or 'ICness = completely subjective so it's irrelevant as a label'-- the more it'll influence what sort of fic you see. The underlying meta that's around may not directly influence fandom, but it's a -product- of fandom influence, so if I see a lot of discussion that leans a certain way, chances are that's the sort of fic that's out there. If I don't want to read fic written with those meta underpinnings, however well-written, then my problem is more with the meta than with a particular fic, isn't it?
I mean, this is about meta, not a fic, right, and I can't help caring when many people disagree with this: hi, ICness? Is real. It EXISTS.
It's not totally subjective (though neither is it totally objective). It's not an exact science, obviously, it being literary criticism and not biochem, but the problem with literary criticism is actually that people get away with saying 'anything goes' in terms of interpretation. This is why I remember sitting in Tolkien class listening to some academics' interpretations of the books and thought OMFG, ALL THESE PEOPLE ARE ON SO MUCH CRACK. :/ And this is why I was too bloody embarrassed to be an English major, y'know? That much wanking can't be healthy. :/
I mean, hey. It's okay-- I didn't lose sleep over it; I'm okay-- you're okay. Being on crack is okay; I dig it. No hurt feelings; knock yourself out. But it doesn't change the fact that you are, you know, on it. What I care about-- what I can't stand-- is when people dismiss it as an issue altogether.
What I'm saying is, I wouldn't care if ICness -were- totally subjective (though I don't think so); I think that an attitude that is rigorous and -tries- to figure canon out as objectively as possible before writing a fic would consistently be more likely to produce fic I think is worth reading for other reasons. I think it's about sitting down and asking yourself why -you- think character X acts in such-and-such a fashion, in canon or in your own fic-- and I think the more you do that, the more you build a mental framework that has a logical/canon basis just because that's easiest to back up with existing behavior patterns. It's not about cutting off fancy or experimentation at all-- it's just about -caring- about that basic framework that supports the overall [HP] 'verse, which is another name for 'canon'.
I don't care about labelling whoever's fic IC or OOC; that's a case by case issue and there's too much ego involved to tell head from tail in those discussions. All I care about in terms of the meta is seeing that the writer cares about canon, no matter their bloody interpretation. People seem so ready to get up all in arms about whoever's supposedly badmouthing their fic (oh noes!) that they sort of sidestep the whole issue of fannish investment. I care about ICness because I AM A FAN: not a slash fan, not a Harry/Draco fan, just a somewhat serious/analytical fan. This is normal [as far as I'm concerned]. It's not freakishly uptight, it's not anti-slash, and it's not even elitist or whatever. I'm not oppressing anyone; I'm not randomly projecting my uber-subjective/delusional fanon fantasies onto someone else's fic [the idea makes me gag, actually]; I'm not making it up to make things difficult for anyone or to ruin anyone's enjoyment. This doesn't reflect my own personal view of 'canon'-- it reflects my need for a certain process that sort of... touches upon canon as a starting point (even if you're using it to overwrite/ignore).
In other words, let me make this very clear: in a very real way, I don't care whether I disagree with a fic on whether Draco actually stomped on Harry's face in HBP because he was just having a bad day or for revenge for sluggifying or because he's kinky like that or whether he's likely to do it again: I just want the explanation being used to make sense [you know, common sense? yeah, that]; I don't care where the fic goes from this or any other starting point in canon. In my experience, when I think something's OOC as I'm reading it's because something logically just-- doesn't follow, and this happens a lot in the HP fics I've read [often that are otherwise well-written].
If A doesn't follow B, it throws me out of the fic: you can't just do whatever you want in fanfic with no repercussions because, you know, it's FANFIC. So if you have glaring logical discrepancies, that's a real problem and most likely in terms of characterization, it's OOC. You can't say 'anything goes' or 'it's up to your taste' in terms of any fictional behavior, because um, people in general aren't random, y'know? And neither are the characters actually puppets made to dance to your whims (I mean, you can go ahead and treat them that way, it's fine, it's just that they aren't like that). Sorry.
What I want is acknowledgment of the pattern that includes a) canon facts; b) canon relationships; c) characters' canon responses to said events/relationships. I want a systematic continuity; why else would one read fanfic and not original fic? D'oh. Yeah dude, that's what ICness means.
The fact that some people in fandom use it to mean 'I dun like ur fic!!1' is not my problem and it doesn't actually affect what 'ICness' means. Just because there are subjective people misusing concepts [subjectively] doesn't make the concepts themselves either entirely subjective or irrelevant. I've liked plenty of fics I'm totally aware are OOC, man. In fact, the fics I've liked that are IC are in the vast minority simply because IC H/D is in the vast minority, so there. :P Saying something's OOC isn't a personal slam against an author or an emotional response-- it's an observation made because I've put some thought into the characterizations involved, thank you very much.
If I wanted to make a [negative] personal response, I myself would just say something sucked donkey egg-noodles & leave it without needing any half-assed justification, because I'm just that self-confident, man. :P (Or not.) Point is, a reasoned critique != a negative personal response. Especially when someone actually says 'this is what's OOC because of such-and-such' rather than just saying 'OOC! OOC! run! run!'-- I mean, I only do that with my friends, and I personally don't even bother critiquing specific fics anyway, so. :/ But talking about critique and what's a valid crit and who's qualified or not is a whole 'nother dead horse, not to mention it deviates from my actual point, which is-- hey, ICness as a valid concept for fanfic actually exists! This isn't my floofy "personal opinion", popular or not: I'm saying this is a provable theory, based on [given canon] facts. Yeah, 'cause I'm just badass like that. :/
Basically, yeah, you can't have Harry secretly jerk off to Draco right when he was canonically jerking off to Ginny [pretty much] without labelling it AU. You cannot have him actually have a crush on Draco [in HBP] without same; more subtly, you can't ignore the fact that these various incidents [the sluggifying, the stomping, etcetc] that occurred between these two characters OCCURRED and have SOME consequence and meaning. They don't -all- need to be dealt with all the time [though it'd be nice, it'd get monotonous] 'cause that's unrealistic; all I'm saying is that ICness is about the fic's overall awareness of the relevant events to the stuff it -does- deal with.
Hey, JKR herself isn't so good with that sometimes [sayyyy... the Sirius+Harry thing] but if I say JKR's not-so-great with these sort of things but then, she's writing for plot-- what's the character writers' loophole?
Mind you, I barely even read [HP] fic anymore, but funny how even reading fics for shows I've never watched [like Sentinel] or watched only a little [like Highlander], I can still tell when the writer is being rigorous and cares about canon. You know how I can tell?
I can tell because they reference canon events and not to explain away why X woke up this morning with a hard-on for Y [yes, I mean all those HBP fics]; I can tell because there is a -process- of getting from point A in the beginning, with a bunch of little references to other people [not villified or caricaturish! wow!] to point B in the end, where there is slash. There's a cookie in the end, but we start from 'no cookie' and a believable-sounding [straight!] character. This, to me, is close enough to the Nature of Classic Slash. It involves cookies & people starting out straight [...and getting a bit lost along the way], that's all I'm sayin'. The rest is applicable to any kind of fanfic.
The process/method reads in a consistently similar manner even when I don't even -know- the canon-- it's just the structure of the fic. In this sense, I don't even care if their canon facts are -wrong- because of this classic slash progression from zero to hero & all the little references that add dimension. It's the dimension-- the process I want.
So basically, I think you can't have IC PWP porn if you don't both know the fandom's canon pretty well [the reader & the writer]-- and in that sense, it's subjective, yeah. But that's specifically the nature of PWPs, not fanfic itself. PWPs rely on the reader to supply lots of background and motivation and the best [IC] ones would leave hints/spaces open to slot in believable initial scenarios and go from there-- plus the behavior/speech would remain recognizable. You're left with emotional states to build on [are they friends? strangers? enemies?] and speech patterns, but that's still a lot if you're good at it. Which. Most people aren't, but. Yes.
Um, so my 'conclusion' is that I really only get bent out of shape when things are discussed as 'just opinion', popular or not, when I don't consider them to be. Since I don't think the existence of ICness vs OOCness is totally subjective, discussing it as such is just incorrect, the way it would be incorrect to seriously discuss how those funky weird people like their funky e-vo-lu-tion when OBVIOUSLY-- obviously!-- the world was created by elephants. In Japan. These elephants, they sat in Japan at the dawn of time & they thought, hey [they thought], why not create the universe? It already exists anyway, so it's no biggie. And thusly! THE WORLD WAS BORN. Or something. So. Yeah, that kind of opinion rubs me the wrong way, somehow.
~~
Ermm... this is [once again] not the post I wanted to write; the rant just... took me like it always does on this subject.... This is not the rant you're looking for :/ Restart, restart, reboot.... Damn, no energy. I pretty much blew my writerly wad already, but... must-- mention-- actually-- interesting-- subject-- must not-- give-- in....
Oh yeah, I've been reading 'Benighted' by Kit Whitfield, which is based around a what-if: what if 99% of the world was werewolves, with only a very few humans, and those humans took care of the werewolves on the night of the full moon?
This actually set me off on an interesting tangent 'cause there's a Q&A session and a 'reader's guide' at the back of the book [which I found V. V. ANNOYING, but] where Kit Whitfield says, in response to a question about what genre the book is, that genre is just for bookstore marketing & doesn't describe real books suffiently & keeps people from reading wider and finding things they might otherwise like. All of which is true as far as it goes, but....
I was thinking about how muddied genre lit has become, most especially sci-fi, because basically there's so much color-by-numbers crap written for it that it's pretty much choking the life from the genre. In this case, I think it's important to define & celebrate what makes that genre what it is, because it's a good thing-- it's an important thing, the concept of writing fiction about ideas. And that's what sci-fi can be-- what sci-fi should be. Speculative fiction based around extrapolating from a single futuristic or unusual or technologically-advanced idea-- writing about the impact of ideas on humanity. Writing about what it really means to be human when reality itself changes, using a scientific [rational & observational] approach.
Also, I feel it's important to add that the 'science' in 'science fiction' doesn't have to mean -physics- or computers. It can be psi stuff [psychology], weird/alien culture stuff [anthropology] or terraforming [ecology/biology], etc.
People think 'sci-fi' means robots & spaceships or else cyber-technology or extremely twisted future worlds & dystopias-- judging from most of what I see published, people think it's about the props. But science fiction-- to me-- it's exactly what Kit Whitfield wrote. It's taking a really strong, vivid questioning idea [what if most humans were werewolves?], and following that through to its logical end conclusion, while hopefully retaining a sense of wonder & mystery of the unsolvable. Now, fantasy can also contain strong what-if ideas, but it's not fantasy if it's built systematically and consistently around that single aberration as a focus. If the world is recognizable in process if not in fact, then I think it's science fiction. Fantasy messes a lot more with process, basically-- the only thing it leaves alone is the individual [to the point where dragons are pretty likely to be anthropomorphized in fantasy], whereas in a lot of ways sci-fi is more likely to change the meaning of 'human' & 'individual' but then remain logical within the repercussions.
Anyway, reading 'Benighted'-- a book about humans & werewolves-- reminded me why I loved sci-fi as a teenager :D
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-19 12:03 am (UTC)It's more that I wonder why people are ANGRY/DISTURBED by the existence of people who don't like what they like, or do like what they don't.
I mean, it's one thing to be like, "Oh I love... McGonagall/Pomfrey femslash and I wish it were more popular!" and something else entirely to be like, "What the fuck is wrong with all those delusional deviants who don't like McGonagall/Pomfrey?" based on NOTHING MORE THAN THE FACT THAT THEY DON'T LIKE MCGONAGALL/POMFREY.
That clarification aside, I basically agree with you about IC and such. There are interpretations of characters that I disagree with, but can see where the theorizer is coming from, and there are interpretations that just strike me as totally bugfuck but I can usually deal as long as they're not like, OH WELL HARRY IS WEARING A TUTU BECAUSE IT'S MY INTERPRETATION THAT HE'S INTO THAT.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-19 12:20 am (UTC)Um, plus I don't go on about deviants. I mean, I do. But not like that. You see what I mean, I'm sure. I think it also has to do with the fact that these other ranty people [y'know, who are not me] are just delusional weirdoes, but hey who knows :D I think people in general tend to be like that when they're prejudiced-- like, all entitlement-complexed and belligerent. Or something.
I KNOW, EXACTLY! WITH THE TUTU! AND THE. YES. As long as people aren't like, 'oh, but U R SO DUMB, HAWWY IS ANYTHING I SAY HE IS' I'm totally blissful, really... yeah...
no subject
Date: 2006-10-19 01:32 am (UTC)Kind of unrelated.
Oh, and biochem? Depending on who you ask, it IS subjective.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-19 02:02 am (UTC)The ramen thing made me wonder about H/D, 'cause I sort of feel the same way-- I love the idea but writing is -hard- and also I've already written a -lot- so I also feel like it's a bit redundant sometimes. The idea -is- awesome, though, so you're like, perfectly objective! In a way. Well, not really, but it's still awesome :D Fandom is so fun when it's... fun, it's hard not to miss it. I seriously get flashes of weirdness when I'm even interested in other characters who are not Draco, I've spent that much time thinking about him. I mean, er, that means it was about time to stop, I guess, but... I think it's like getting over any other love. It's never... not weird. (See how deep I am?)
Haha, this is what happens when humanities majors talk about science :)) Well, I meant you could do experiments & get empirical proof and stuff, 'cause penicillin works and such. Of course, there are people who think reality's subjective in every way, but then there's no help for those people :>
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Date: 2006-10-19 04:16 am (UTC)I've always been a bit mystified by the urge to abandon canon. After all, canon is *why* I write fanfic at all. I love the sheer bondage of it. LOL. Working in a tightly and rigorously circumscribed universe is very appealing to me. It's such a challenge. Actually, my general perception (which turned out to be wrong) was that Rowling's HP wasn't really capable of becoming "canon" (say like Tolkien's Arda) because every time she - the God of her own universe - wanted something to happen, she could completely invent something out of thin air (literally). But then finally having read the books, I discovered that HP had this totally intoxicating mixture of wildly-flexible canon (again, as compared with Tolkien, for instance) combined with rather rigid and inflexible characterizations. I don't know why, but this combination really got ye ole creative juices flowing. But that's an aside to my main point, which is my bafflement over why some people have such violent reactions to working within the constraints of canon, when (I'm speculating) it was canon that attracted them in the first place. As a reader, I'm not interested in reading about original characters named "Harry" and "Draco." I'm interested in recognizing the canon characters and having canon explained and expanded, not chucked out the window when it becomes "inconvenient."
Maybe part of the IC versus OOC tension in the HP fandom comes from the fact that it's still evolving, and what may have been passable as canon H/D after GoF is wildly AU after HBP. In some ways I feel sympathetic to those who feel like Rowling wrote their characterizations right out from under them. In a kind of way, they're mourning what might have been and what simply cannot be now after HBP. But when I was writing in LotR (which has been "closed canon" for decades) and people wanted to chuck canon out the window . . . in that case I had no sympathy at all. Annoyed the crap out of me.
Anyway. Enough of my ramblings.
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Date: 2006-10-19 04:22 am (UTC)But yeah, it's funny that people like ignoring canon so much, except that fandom provides a handy audience so there's that going for it-- you can write about 'Harry' & 'Draco' and get a lot more readers than if you wrote about John & Bob-- plus people just don't -know- or understand canon that well. 'Tis true :>
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Date: 2006-10-19 07:13 am (UTC)(p.s. hi there!)
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Date: 2006-10-19 08:37 pm (UTC)Um, yeah... this is why I tend not to -read- (or watch) it much-- 'cause it's written by boys who like toys. For some reason I tend to like it when it's written by girls, just to be disgustingly stereotypical, but it -does- tend to be about characters much more...
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Date: 2006-10-19 11:23 pm (UTC)(in a messed-up way, like all the best writing)
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Date: 2006-10-20 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-19 09:09 pm (UTC)At first I wasn't sure if you were talking about making stuff make sense in fanfic or making the fanfic connect to the canon. I think sometimes that's the thing...there's going to be certain leaps you can make and certain ones you can't. For instance this example:
Basically, yeah, you can't have Harry secretly jerk off to Draco right when he was canonically jerking off to Ginny [pretty much] without labelling it AU.
That just made me laugh because I thought...why would that be AU? Not because I think it's canon that Harry is doing that, but I could easily believe a story where the jerking off to Draco just wasn't mentioned in the book because it a) wasn't appropriate and b) wasn't something Harry would acknowledge in the official version. So instead we get coy references to dreams about Ginny and the monster. But stick in a little masturbation on the night when he falls asleep thinking about Malfoy? I don't need explanation for that--I'd get that it's not canon but it doesn't seem anti-canon to me. It would seem silly to suggest it's AU just because Harry thought about somebody other than Ginny. He could have a wet dream about Trelawney and I'd think it fit fine with canon--again, not because I think Harry's in love with Trelawney but just hey, weird things happen in fanfic Harry's head that are just not going to happen inside the head of his canon counterpart's.
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Date: 2006-10-20 05:41 am (UTC)Like, of course it can make sense if it's not canon [acanon? heh] but not if it's anti-canon. As a canon reader, I can't help going 'beep! beep! THIS IS BULLSHIT, ALERT! REPEAT, BULLSHIT ALERT!'. I refuse to make leaps because I care. *nodnod*
Okay, I went too far saying to label it as AU, but I guess I'd have to specify that it's only -not- (to me) if it's a casual thing... like... something that wouldn't change a lot of other things if it happened. If he had a wet dream about RON or I dunno, Seamus, then it could be in between the lines... but this is DRACO FUCKING MALFOY. Maybe it's just because I'm a shipper, but anytime I wrote them [or most times when I read them, too, actually], I always had Harry pretty shook up by any inkling of desire for Draco, and same vice versa. They could -repress- it, but to consciously be aware and yet dismissive/casual [ie, focusing on other, 'more important' things] and then have all the other H&D stuff in canon happen the same way? That blows my mind. But in a bad way... actually, in a way that'd make me feel less shippy, like... if it -were- possible, I'd be like, well-- meh-- what's the big deal then? Y'know?
To me, there are all these consequences to desire between them, and maybe I -am- blowing it all out of proportion, but really... they both seem REALLY repressed, given you think either of them -could- actually want/like each other 'that way' in canon. Like, mega-ultra-super repressed and in denial. So. With Trelawney, it would just be weird and freaky and gross and with Seamus maybe disturbing & weird and forgettable [cue more repression], whereas with DRACO... to me, it's a whole 'nother ballgame. Or maybe with Harry especially, I just can't see him being so insincere-- to 'secretly' think about Draco and consciously be at least somewhat forced with Ginny. It's just too weird in terms of my idea of who Harry is in canon. He's not... he doesn't pretend like that. He -controls- himself [with Sirius, somewhat] and focuses on other things, but he never -acts-, that's all Draco.
This is partly because to you, H/D is just a lot more easy to believe-- so in that sense yeah, it's a question of willingness fo make a leap-- but still, partly definitely because I see canon as excluding H/D ON PURPOSE [not just authorial intent, but even Harry's 'intent' if that makes sense] even as it taunts me with the possibilities. Maybe it's just very important to me to be 'true to' Harry, so I can't casually imagine him 'bent' from my One Canon Harry in anything but AU. I mean, I have some flexibility-- but Harry's not the most defined character for nothing, too, y'know?
That's part of my problem with fandom talking so casually about how Harry 'wants Draco so bad' in HBP or whatever. He just. DOESN'T. There may or may not be subtext, but it still remains subversive to write H/D, I guess (which I like!). Harry doesn't like him more or stalk him for any sexy reason except y'know, paranoid fixation could be sexy I guess. So with this big canonical cauldron of emotion that Draco induces in Harry-- that's why I can't imagine any casual 'behind-the-scenes' wanking. It just doesn't fit canon at ALL, not on a conscious level, 'cause the very point seems repression if desire did exist. Heh. Man, I'm a wiiiidle too invested in all this, I know... -.-;;