[.....this may or may not sound bitter. *cough*]

[reenka]

It just occurred to me that it's not that I don't like enthusiastic recs, obviously-- 'cause I do that all the time-- and it's not that I'm not 'naturally fannish' in the omg-squee sense, because I totally get obsessive and excitable about things I read or watch-- but what really turns me off is when something's recced or pimped by just saying 'I like it, SO YOU SHOULD TOO!' ^^;;; I mean, I'm okay with the reccing-'cause-liking part, but that's just not a good reason to peer pressure anyone. And yes, it always feels like peer pressure to me. >.>;;;

It's like... the difference between sharing hobbies and 'creating a phenomenon' or marketing a story or a fandom or whatever.
    There are a lot of books (and movies & comics, etc) that mean a lot to me, that are personal to me. But they are personal to me, and therefore it would be disingenuous to defend them or 'sell' them, so when I want people to get into them too (and I do! I tell all my friends to read 'Sandman'), I'm constantly walking the line between assuring them they'll like it and why it's actually awesome and just describing what -I- like about it and such. Some things really are very well-done and worth reading/seeing... but to a person like me, if you over-stress how 'need to see' or 'have to read' something is, it makes me feel like a sucker. :/
    I hate the popularity game-- I mean, I really feel like the more popular or famous something gets, the more its own fans will ignore its real merits (and flaws) and just coast along on the 'obvious' awesomeness of it all and how clearly omg-genius & hot it is.

I guess what I mean is, I hate it when something I initially cared about for partly quirky subjective reasons becomes 'cool' and 'the thing to like'. :/ At a certain point of popularity, it's not okay to critique something as much, to geek out and just talk about all the little things that appeal to you, because rabid fans get uber-defensive, y'know? Of course once it's popular, it's FLAWLESS & GODLIKE. -.-; Like, if someone tells you they don't like something about Tolstoy's work, people would assume that person is an idiot, right? Either that or they'd get pissy you're harshing their buzz. Somehow the story/show/etc becomes an identity or status symbol for people once it reaches a certain level of popularity.
    Of course all larger communities have their good & bad side; on the one hand, you lose the intimate feeling & greater understanding between those first few fans, but on the other hand, more people are being exposed to the material (if you care about that sort of thing) and you get vindicated about how awesome it is. Mer.
~~

Btw, I really liked this post on purposeful misidentification in stories by fictualities, 'cause that's pretty much what makes me feel most uncomfortable while reading (and alienates me in some more critical meta fandom circles). Fighting the narrative is hard work with little reward, and ohhh, I like my rewards, precious. :> Though I'd never feel I'd 'have' to fight the narrative just to identify with the 'missing' main girl-- I mean, um, having that degree of an agenda is hard work too :>
    However, I can like 'bad' characters naturally merely based on the ambiguously-positive cues in the text, while still liking the good characters, simply 'cause I generally don't care who's good & who's bad :D Unless they annoy me & seem stupid. Then it's really on :/ But I totally never felt I was 'supposed' to dislike Draco, not the way I was 'supposed' to dislike the Dursleys, so yeah, it's obvious he's not entirely unsympathetic (so who cares). Seriously. He's always been just so cute!! *___* Man, who wants to be an intellectual -.-

EDIT - I just found fairestcat's year-old post explaining Watsonian vs. Doylist approaches to a given canon (one justifying various events from the author-pov so they'd make sense & one from a character's), and maaaan, that explains a LOT about fandom conflicts :D Needless to say, I'm definitely a faithful Watsonian :> I tend to consider Doylist-style explanations cute and enlightening (ie, author intent & attendant issues are interesting), but ultimately it pulls me out of the flow of a show/story so I tend to compartmentalize it, I guess. Like, if the only way to explain something is to point to the writers' "smoking crack" or having whatever agenda, then I'm just plain disappointed in the show & don't bother with further analysis voluntarily. I guess I'd say it's useful to add some Doylist flavor but not satisfying emotionally to me as a fan ^^;;;; And in some ways, I do think there might be a rational vs. intuitive/emotional-style analysis divide between the two approaches....

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

Didn't we already talk about this?
And gahds, I'm mad at some bnfs who (sometimes even in private and unguarded) say that people who won't read fics "despite" them reccing it are idiots
So I like that that anime? comm is called "try_this". Even if I know nothing about it. Because nothing makes me hate a fic, a writer or indeed a reccer more than "you lose at fandom if you don't" or "run, do it now".
Anyone claiming something is objectively good, "it has nothing to do with my personal tastes", I distrust. Oh well.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

*cries* WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I'VE TALKED ABOUT EVERYTHING ON MY LJ ABOUT 82794287982474 TIMES BY NOW :(( But I feel compelled to bring these things up cyclically 'cause things happen to remind me *facepalm*

Ahem. But yes, I know we're on the same page here :D Gahhhhhhh, I say 'peer pressure' but really so often it's 'peer brainwashing'. Nothing to make you lose affection for something like being beat over the head with how amazing it is. Repeatedly. :>

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

*lol* and aaaaaaaaaaaaw. Well see, I only ever said it now, so it looks like only 2 rather than 82794287982474 TIMES


Yes, yes, and it's so bad now that I had huge troubles even reading a fic that was soft-recced by new friends (as being much like my style and my views) *flail*

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I can't really blame fandom, though-- I've always been likely to not do something if someone thought I 'should' :> *groan* It's the 'should' word! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAAAAAY!!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

Heh - and I'm proud I didn't actually blame fandom (here/this time). I always thought the only skill I have was knowing what I like, which sounds pathetic, but is still rare amongst ... humanoids.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Heheh, yeah, it's funny how I do know what I like, even if I don't necessarily know what I -want- :D

[arboretum]

re: 'I like it, SO YOU SHOULD TOO!', I agree that it can be kind of, "...????" to see, because, you know, thanks for actually trying to convince me to read it.... XD

but I mean, for the person doing the recs, it all kind of depends on their intended audience, right? if their flist is populated heavily by people who share their kinks/fandoms/tastes, then "I like it, so you should too," seems to be a pretty valid rec, to me. If I see such a rec from someone whose tastes I know I am pretty much in line with, I will go read the fic; obviously, though, if I don't know the reccer, then not so much.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hmm... you may be on to something with the audience thing, and this ties into what _inbetween_ was saying about most people not knowing what they like, anyway :D My flist consists of individuals, and I can't think of anyone who has exactly my taste, so I'd always be like, 'well, you'd -probably- like this, it has this-and-this-and-that, but this is why -I- like it' and just... well, I wouldn't be pushy, obviously ^^;;; Most of the time I just go on squeeing about why I like it & forget to try to communicate anything to anyone. Which. Has its own downsides, clearly :D

But then, I mean, I only trust very close friends to rec me stuff in HP (...and even then I probably won't read it unless I'm desperate), and would easily read rec-lists of people I don't know in say, Highlander & The Sentinel if I've read one or two on their list before & liked the fics. In this case, it's particularly "...." to me if I've already seen/read the thing and it's just praised to high heaven to the point where I'm like, dissociating with my own attachment just by contrary instinct :>

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether I'm neither Doylist nor Watsonian or both.

I mean basically what I do is I look at both and integrate them. My first step is to interpret in-text, but if for whatever reason i run into authorial intent (whether I'm interested enough to seek it out, or I just run into it, or something is ambiguous/unclear and I want it clarified or WHATEVER) then i reinterpret the text through the lens of what the author was doing. Basically, I say, okay given that the author says Character X feels this way/did that because of this, how does that ripple outward and affect everything else? So I reinterpret but still from within-text. I'm not even sure this is properly explained.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on whether I -want- to integrate them, maybe? If the 'thing to be explained' is a curiosity and doesn't matter to me emotionally one way or the other that much, then I'll just do whatever it takes to 'smooth it over'; if it pisses me off or bothers me somehow to add the authorial/outside-meta explanation-- ie, if I have to do the work just to have a bad show make sense-- then it's just like, 'feh'. I'd prefer the acrobatics to be Watsonian, if that would 'fix it'. I dunno. In the case of plot-holes or characterization errors/missteps, at least, I feel unforgiving if they need to be explained by deux ex machina of sorts, basically, y'know? But I think it's analytically most elegant to combine them, outside a particular context (and most people seem to comment saying they use both depending on the circumstances) :D

I just don't like to... have to. I'm probably not made for TV/episodic fandoms? I don't like having my nose rubbed in inconsistencies & the way authors changed their minds over time or whatever, 'cause it affects my view of the integrity of the universe. Like, take The Sandman-- as is, it works in my head. If I had to for some reason say 'well, Neil made a compromise here, pandered to the fans there, forgot his own canon over here', it would erode my respect & enjoyment. But I do like to know what Neil was thinking & would integrate it if I knew, sure :>

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

Well if you're talking about the typical "the author's on crack, that's why the show sucks" type explanation then, yeah if a show sucks I'm just not going to watch it. unless it sucks in a way i find entertaining anyway, LOL!

But if we're talking about a thing where... see, I'm so trying to avoid the QAF thing because I'M TIRED OF TALKING ABOUT IT AHAHAH! But in a nutshell, if you have a situation where, if you look at this thing from one angle you see X and if you look from another angle you see Y, and I initially see X and then find out the author was going for Y, then I'm going to switch to their angle and then start re-extrapolating based on that. Whereas if Y is just NOT PRESENT AT ALL and the author is claiming Y out of the blue, that's just the author being incompetant and why am I watching/reading to begin with. Know what I mean? So for me a key question is, is the author's intent something that's present but I just missed it, or is it just coming out of the blue.

And of course, being me, I'm just deeply troubled by the idea of disregarding it just because you don't like it. Which is different than disregarding it because it's NOT THERE, but I'm not sure how many people can tell the difference, and I'm pretty sure no one can tell the difference ALL the time.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Oh, well, I think we're talking/focusing on somewhat different things-- like, you're not so much talking about patching holes/issues that shouldn't be there & more reconciling things that seem confusing at first glance or require further analysis or whatever. Then, yeah, it's not as if I'd ignore an explanation just because I didn't like it. I more don't want to be stuck with an extra-source explanation unless something's confusing in a thinky way, not a 'oops, we messed up/were pandering/changed writers/had an outside agenda/had a bad day' way. This doesn't necessarily mean it just -sucks-, but I guess I'd prefer not to dwell on something extra-textual that's going to add to the suckage that would otherwise not have been there-- not 'cause I don't like it but just 'cause it's disappointing in terms of quality or my respect for the integrity of the source.

Liiiike, for instance, all the gaffes in Smallville. :/ I mean, that comes close to 'they're just on crack', but it's just not quite there, and it's one case where I'd rather not think about what the writers are thinking :/ Mooostly it's the same with Buffy; hearing about their opinions on Spike just interferes with my ideas on Spike and how I see the show. I listened to it enough and now I'm just like, 'to hell with it', since like, they disagree anyway. :/ Marti Noxon thinks one thing, the Great Whedon thinks another thing, Anony!fanboy-writer Y thinks a third thing.... :/ For me, Spike works as a character best if you just say 'okay, how do you explain his arc within canon'; Doylist!Spike meta tends to be trotted out by people who have issues with his characterization and want to add -more- issues or justify ignoring Season 6-7 souled!Spike or whatever. God, it's just a huge mess. :/

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

We totally are talking about slightly different things which I noticed about halfway through my reply but I posted it anyway because what the hell, I already wrote it. ;)

The Spike-in-Buffy thing is kinda apeshit, it's true. I think that's, yeah, kind of a tv-show/media fandom problem, especially with shows where the showrunners weren't as tyrannical as, say, CowLip. Because like with QAF, Cowen and Lipman were so controlling that the writers were unhappy and the cast was unhappy and everyone was stifled and miserable and the writers said their scripts were pretty much just rewritten practically from the ground up, and that's all horrible working conditions but at least you know who to listen to when you're looking for clarification.

Whereas with buffy it's more difficult because Joss was pretty loose, especially in S6 and 7, so writers were going all kinds of odd places and I suspect if James Marsters weren't such a good actor, Spike wouldn't hold together as a character at all.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, also, there's the JKR (in regards to her comments about saaay Ginny or Draco) thing, where it works one way if you pay attention and another way if you don't; and also there are obviously lots of math-related plot-holes and inconsistencies in the basic world-building and such. And I'm guessing from the Doylist vs Watsonian thing, Doyle also had this issue with writing the Holmes stories in some way (though I read them as a child and that all just passed me by). Of course, I don't feel compelled to like a direction the show went-- things could appeal to me at first & then not so much later, and this happens a lot with TV shows and long-running books (like, hello X-Files), and sometimes knowing the intent makes it worse, so if I can explain it otherwise, I would, because basically it's still something I'd prefer to enjoy if I can.

It's odd for me with Spike 'cause I actually think the plot details were often 'meh', but Spike's bigger decisions totally make sense to me considering his history-- like attempting to rape Buffy, going to get a soul for her sake, being emo and emotionally subby-- all that works in theory, if you just think about the outlines of what happened; in practice, it didn't come across that well, though James Marsters was always fun to watch (esp. with Sarah).

With QaF, it's less what happened (to me) than what didn't; certain things just didn't develop in a way I'd prefer but yeah, it makes sense... I'm not sure if you need the writers to explain it to make it fit. I'd prefer you didn't, because I think a good work stands on its own merits in the end. I don't need the writers to justify/explain things if they're just open-ended-- it's not that I want to believe falsely, but ambiguity can be nice, and having potentialities sawed off that existed purely in-text is not-so-nice. Sometimes it's obvious (to me) that those potentialities aren't likely (the way Sirius/Remus is, let's face it, unlikely), but I'd prefer not to listen if JKR ever said 'oh yah, you S/R people are on TOTAL CRACK'. In that sense, I prefer writers like Lois McMaster Bujold, who leave little loopholes open and accept alternative readings-- I like roomy texts. In my head, H/D can coexist with H/G because I see HBP as supporting both possibilities in different ways. And I don't need the writers to say 'this is what I meant' unless I really have a hard time with something, and even then, my respect for the show or whatever goes down if it needs to be broken down.

So basically it's a convoluted relationship, so overall I have no issue just saying I'm Watsonian by preference :> I like the text most. I'm curious/interested/fascinated by the behind-the-scenes stuff, but don't mess with my text!! D: heh I get a bit possessive about 'verses I really like, maybe....

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

I think I'm a lot more concerned about character consistency than, say, plot holes or math stuff although some of the really bad ones kind of irritate me. Like how GoF was entirely predicated on getting harry to touch a cup when Barty Jr. could have just like, asked Harry to get him a pen or something.

Ummm, I don't feel compelled to like the way a show went either, but usually I do just because I dont really care about plot direction so I usually don't have a preference at all. There are exceptions though - like, I loved Xena and then I didn't anymore. I think sometimes a show goes on for so long that the writers have nothing else to say but they keep pumping it out anyway and that's when you get high quality dramas that turn into bad soaps.

The QAF thing - in fairness, none of the writers have ever like, posted a huge explanation on a website or anything. What happens is that the fans ask them questions and send them emails and they get private responses and then post the emails/transcribe the Q&A sessions or report on the meetings. The writers themselves, in an official way, did leave it open-ended, yeah. And I do think it stands alone, but I kind of think that the fanbase's emotional investment in one particular interpretation makes it difficult for a lot of people to put it in perspective, because in order to see how it stands alone (I'm not even talking about the Michael stuff, btw, I'm talking about the Justin stuff separately), they'd have to be willing to let go of assumptions that they don't want to let go of, and start over. It's one of those things where... you know, a novel develops and you have expectations and then the ending comes and, often, the expectations were a mislead, or formed based on insufficient info so they turn out to be wrong? And the you didn't really expect the ending that does come, but looking back you can see how it all leads to this place. Except with QAF, because it played out over years instead of a few days or weeks or whatever (however long it takes to read a book) people had been forming those expectations and becoming attachedd to them for so long that when the ending came they weren't able to get that distance and look back and see the threads that lead from the first page to the last.

And I love ambiguity - actually, the main complaint I always get from people who read my fic is that the endings aren't traditional/closed enough/don't wrap everything up, which I do on purpose because I hate that tidy "closed with a bow" feeling. That said, going back to the no preferences thing, since I don't really care about what could/will happen, I don't mind having potentialities sawed off and I think I like it more as an external than as an internal, which is possibly weird. By which I mean, I like when the text itself is somewhat open-ended, because looking at the source as a story, I dont like tidy stories.

But there's still a part of me that wants to KNOW, and so I like when the author tells me, externally, what he or she figures would happen? DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE WHATSOEVER? It's kind of weird that way, because I like roomy stories, because aesthetically I prefer them as they feel more "real" but that preference only extends to the story itself, not to what i know about the story externally.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hmm... sometimes when things seem really suspenseful or I really care about a particular character's development & life, then I do want to know. Depends what there is to know, I guess-- in one sense I just dislike being in suspence. But then the possibilities I'm talking about aren't really necessarily even realistic or concrete-- and it's rare I 'live' in a universe to think of them that much (I pretty much have to be reading fic for it usually, before I think on it that far). Most times I just go with what seems most likely and assume that's it, and most times that's enough. With the ending of Buffy, for instance (minus Angel especially), it's a lot differently open-ended than the ending of QaF-- like, I REALLY wouldn't like to hear that 'oh, so Buffy didn't really love Spike & she was lying', for instance. There's a delicate point between too much suspense & just open-endedness, and while I understand the differentiation between external and internal open-endedness, I guess it's rare for me to need a wrap-up. If I do, I'd prefer another novel or to write/read a number of fics-- like, the cure for my dissatisfaction with Buffy S7 was to read a bunch of good post-series fics. And a number of good, interesting shows end teasingly but in a way that invites satisfying fanfic. Nothing told/known could be nearly as satisfying as a story. Like, compared to reading my favorite post-series fic-- imagine if Whedon said the same thing, but like, 'this is actually what happened'; I think I'd prefer the fic 'cause it was more fun to read :>

So I guess this is just a matter of preference. Still, QaF is different 'cause of the issues being with the fans rather than with the canon so much. At the same time, I dunno if I would've seen more B/M in it or whether I would've decided Brian didn't 'work' for Justin except as a growing experience-- in some ways, that's a personal call based on what a viewer believes about the nature of love/relationships in general. At the same time, I think the degree to which I'd want to 'know' would depend on how much I cared about the show/text. If I care more, I'm more of a canon-whore than if I care less, in which case I need to know less :>

Hmm, it occurs to me a lot of people claimed characterization inconsistencies with JKR, too-- like, with Ginny in book 5-6, with Hermione in book 6 (which I found reeeally annoying), and of course there were always people saying Draco never had a 'real' consistent personality and were totally taken aback by HBP. The truth is, often it seems her characters do things to serve the plot rather than the plot revolving around the characters, so some of that is inevitable. A lot of times the best explanation for their behavior is probably 'this had to happen for this plot point to occur'. I suppose in that case, knowing this is external-- I don't mix the meta with my understanding of how the characters actually work when I'm thinking of them for fic or something, y'know? :>

I'm actually really complacent about plot development most of the time, unless you get me all riled up about a character and that's tied to plot development. It just seems 'wrong' for some things to happen; I guess the way people thought souled!Spoke was Just Wrong (though he wasn't in theory). When that wrongness -does- happen to me, I prefer to inch my way to understanding by a Watsonian in-text technique if I can, that's all. Otherwise it'll always feel like a slapped on band-aid and the 'verse integrity can never quite retain its former elasticity.

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

That's entering into an area that I just can't even begin to relate to. Because fanfic could never do anything for me on a canon satisfaction level because it's not canon. Also I don't like fanfic very much. For me, it's really all about knowledge rather than speculation, which... I am pretty sure you know - Joss saying THIS IS SO means something to me, whereas fanfic writer #45246 writing a story where this is so is just another fanfic writer fantasizing in his/her word processor. And that's not meant to be an insult? It's just a perspective - I'm one of the fantasizing fangirls, myself. But when I was writing post-series B/J fic, for example, people would tell me I was helping them deal with the ending, and I really don't understand that because if I write a fic where Brian moves to New York or whatever, that doesn't really have anything to do with the 'real' Brian, who existed only at CowLip's whim and whose life experiences were entirely defined by their vision.

If it made sense to me, I'd probably better understand people freaking out about me writing B/M fic, because I suspect it's linked to the idea that fic is somehow more connected to canon/more real to them than it is to me, so they put a lot more weight on what people are putting in their fic than I do. It's a little funny, because I'm the world's biggest canon!whore, but at the same time fic is totally disconnected from canon, for me.

The QAF thing - that's why I specified that I was talking about the Justin thing, at that point. I mean, basically I think people became so invested in the idea that Brian and Justin were this huge high romance epic love thing and meant to be together that when the end came and that didn't pan out, they labeled it wrong/OOC/inconsistent instead of re-examining their assumptions. And I think sometimes writers do venture off randomly, change their minds in the middle of things, whatever, but I don't think that should be a person's first thought when things don't turn out as they'd like. With QAF, putting the Michael thing aside because I do think that's more complicated, looking at it as a whole instead of as a 5 year WIP, I do see the foreshadowing and the threads that lead to the end. I think a lot of people just label things that contribute to things they dislike as inconsistent or OOC, and everything ends up kind of patchwork.

As for the Michael thing, that really is left ambiguous within the show itself - getting an explanation does require external investigation. But I think that... in a lot of ways whether one defines Brian's feelings for Michael as platonic or romantic is beside the point? Because I think the important thing being communicated was that whatever FLAVOR of love Brian had for Michael, it was the strongest/most important thing in his life. And I think that message DOES come across even without external commentary... but only to people who are willing to hear it, you know what I mean?

By the way, at this point I'm not even sure what we're talking about anymore. So if I sound like I'm arguing with you, um, I don't mean to? LOL!

With JKR, I think part of it is that she's a plot-driven writer more than a character-writer, and I think a lot of times JKR (And CowLip too, to be honest) will have a vision of what the character is like but isn't necessarily very good at getting that across. With CowLip, they neglected Justin's character out of irritation with Randy and also because they were just more interested in Brian and Michael's characters than Justin's. With JKR I think she's sort of distracted by theme and plot - also she tends to leave plot-like cues for things that should be handled in a character-manner. Like she mentioned that Ginny was outgoing a few times in early books, but she never SHOWED US THAT until OotP, which is why it came off as random to a lot of people even though she had, technically, set up for it.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I guess the thing is that I wasn't talking about overwriting canon or fic being 'on the level' with canon, just expanding and filling in where canon refuses to tread-- and me simultaneously liking that airiness and presence, that half-life of fanfic reality at the end of Buffy, say. I think it can help one deal with canon the way dreams can help one deal with life-- playing out different (positive) scenarios lets you really work through some issues, I think, be at peace with yourself and the possibilities being there moreso than if it was only half-formed ideas on your head.

Sometimes the canon leaves the field ripe for the fic treatment and sometimes it doesn't-- like, it's too tied up or open-ended in the wrong way (see: Angel ending). I dunno about QaF... I think it's more of a finished/closed-off arc to me than Buffy&Spike were at the end of S7 because (ironically) more irrevocable things happened to Brian & Justin whereas Buffy & Spike had lots of potential they hadn't worked through yet by the time Spike 'died'. It's easy enough to bring Spike back to life (he did anyway, with Angel), disregarding Angel (the series) especially, but even then. If he -did- come back to life, there'd be lots of stuff that could happen with Buffy if/when they met again, and that stuff would best be told in a story rather than in a summary or a statement. It's not -canon-, but making it a story lets a reader deal with this internally-- given they've internalized the situation and it's emotionally relevant to them, it's like therapy, because at that point Buffy&Spike's issues are like their issues too. I imagine that's how your saner B/J-shipping readers might feel, though I still think B/S is more ripe for fic than B/J was.

It's not the same thing as equating canon with fic or confusing them. It's sort of how I'm glad the Marauders era is so open-- it works for me to see it from lots of different perspectives 'cause I think lots of different things could've happened and there's like, a garden's worth of fics there. With B/J, it's not a garden to me-- there seem to be a few main possibilities, but basically it's 'Brian goes after him' or 'Justin comes back' :>

Of course, one person's garden is another person's cut-and-dry concrete block :>

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't mean to say you were taking fanfic as canon or confusing them? It's just that fanfic literally cannot do anything for me in that area - I see what you mean about the internalizing/working through, and yet it doesn't have that effect on me at all. And part of it is that I don't tend to have the emotional investment/relevancy issue to begin with, but a lot of it is that... it just doesn't. I don't know.

I kind of think fanfic doesn't have any emotional weight for me beyond the length of the story itself? It's almost like, you have canon "reality" and fanfic is like, a daydream or a fantasy, I guess? And they can entertain me for a bit but when the fantasy ends I'm back to exactly where I was because it doesn't actually impact anything. ...I don't daydream, btw, but I don't have any other um, metaphors.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Heh, this gets into the possible roles of fantasy in one's everyday 'waking' life, which is an interesting subject in itself :> I think being the way you are, it makes sense-- just as me being the way I am, of course fantasy has a huge influence on my overall reality & it has a lot (too much? probably) emotional weight, given I'm already especially sensitive on an issue. I'm not -always- wide open or that invested that I need to 'work through' things afterwards; the B/S post-S7 thing was special. But if I do work through, I work through by reading/writing just naturally 'cause it's my... instinctive healing/native mode. :> Other people have other preferred native modes :D

The healing effect of that one fic was a unique occurence for me too, though. It just somehow managed to show me exactly what I could believe could happen with certain future tweaks and yet also wanted to believe. Sometimes I read a fic that just seems 'right' in a way that's beyond just it being well-characterized or well-plotted-- something about it has a strong emotional pull towards me, like it addresses my needs or pushes some button. It gives me that feeling of 'this is how it -should- happen', even though I know it didn't and wouldn't, but it reassures me; the same way a dream may linger afterwards, becoming fuzzy on the details and actually losing its coherency but having you retain that feeling of contenment for the rest of the day. That's what it's like for me. :>

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

Yup yup, which is what I was thinking when I was saying um, that it's a mindset I can't begin to relate to. Which is to say, that it is a personality variable thing more than anything else. I'm really trying not to get into the Buffy/Spike thing, dude, I am Buffy/Angel till I die.

Sometimes I read a fic that just seems 'right' in a way that's beyond just it being well-characterized or well-plotted

This I have experienced... once. And it was because the fic was pretty much exactly what I had extrapolated to be the most likely future for the characters in question, so it was nice to see that vision shared by um, someone who wasn't me, HAHAHAA. It took a while to figure out why I was so impressed by it even though it wasn't the best written fic I'd seen even by that specific writer. But one day I was talking to Lara and I realized, as I was laying out my best guess as to their futures, that I was basically describing that fic on a tonal level (like, the EVENTS weren't identical, but the atmosphere/emotional place of the characters was?), and that this vision predated the fic, and then I understood why it worked for me so well.

Hahaha, predictably, it still didn't linger. Dreams don't linger on me, either though. Personality variables.

[malafede.livejournal.com]

Watsonian vs. Doylist approaches

Oooooh. That's illuminating, although I guess it's another ramification of the Authorial Intent vs Reader Response showdown (aaargh?). It explains a bit better why I get so frustrated at explanations like "it happened because it's a plot hole" or "X acted like this because the author needed Y to find their panties", and I always feel like saying "IRRELEVANT!" when it pops out in discussions. To me, theoretically, there's no conflict between "why the author made this choice" and "why the character made this choice" because they are two choices that happen in different universes even though obviously the character is moved by the author. However, the author's choices explain the *author*. The only way you explain a character is their actions, aka the text. And the reason my wording is perhaps strong is that it's one of those ideas I assumed as universally true until I came in contact with people who would argue otherwise. I actually tried to word it differently and was simply at a loss ;D

I'm glad you linked this. Thinking about it, it seems like I am Watsonian first, and it's my being Watsonian that makes me a Reader Response fan. Characters come first -- and you can't trust Intent to divine them because Intent is a generic potential, and only becomes a fixed quantity when it's translated into the Text.

It's a complicate issue in fandom because Motives are Suspicious, aka some will say you're ignoring Authorial Intent because you don't like it. That is also frustrating for me because I honest to God have no ulterior motives. It's just not my instinct to ask myself what an author. Even when I was wee, if I was unclear about something I read I didn't go "I wonder what the Author meant" but "I'll read it again" because the person behind the story didn't matter. And whenever I reach conclusions that are in contrast with a stated intent it's not out of an act of conscious subversion, but simply because that's what I thought was happening.

Though I gotta admit I'm not such a purist, I have political reasons to support the Reader Response, ahah. I'm a fan of open canons, I feel the reader should have more power in the relationship, and I only support ownership of a text for financial (& moral) reasons. I wonder how many of those positions can be explained in terms of "what's best for Art" by using Watsonian logic. I was reading a discussion about fanfic recently and the pro arguments focused a lot on issues of ownership (and lack thereof), and when people disagreed pro-fanfic people would use the concept of interpretation in a way that sounds close to what (I think) Watsonian people say. ("An author can't be trusted with control of the text, their interpretation is only good as any other.")

[malafede.livejournal.com]

Forgot this!

Like, if the only way to explain something is to point to the writers' "smoking crack" or having whatever agenda, then I'm just plain disappointed in the show & don't bother with further analysis voluntarily.

Actually for me this is an issue that's independent from my fannish status -- ie, I can love or hate something, but analyzing it and making things work (especially if at a first glance they make no sense) always gives me a huge pleasure. It's not causal with my enjoyment of the show, more like an enjoyment that runs parallel.

So (to make that paragraph about Suspicious Motives meaningful) if someone says "but the author says it's not true" or even the more guilt-trippy "but how can you call yourself a fan if you don't care" I always feel weirded out, because they're just separate issues. I don't need to like (be a fan) something to comment on it -- or even to spend time on it, because my mind just goes there automatically if engaged, and "be seen by me" pretty much = "engaging me". I do agree that it explains a lot of conflict in fandom, because I can see why an attitude like mine may look Suspicious to someone who wouldn't be into a show/book/etc if they didn't trust the authors. On my end, I've become disenchanted with word "fan" because it implies a level of devotion I don't naturally feel. This may be why a lot of the Doylist's efforts seem (to me) focused on making the author appear coherent, not the story per se.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think the debate-being-independent is apparently a J issue, btw :D For me there is no separation between liking to think at all and liking to think because I like it (ie, I'm hugely motivated by preference in general). While I like 'making things work', I don't like doing things I really like if I don't like the circumstances. I'm lazy and flippant that way :> In other words, it's a personality-based preference which leads to me just being rather picky in general :D (...it also hounds me at school, as you can imagine.....)

However, it doesn't go so far for me as to not be into a show/etc if I don't "trust" the author; sure, I'd be -more- into it if I did, but it's enough for me not to actively disrespect or be annoyed by the author. So I was saying if and when I see something that makes me lose respect, I can't really enjoy analyzing it. It's also why sometimes you think I'm a lot more hardcore pro-canon & JKR than I am, I guess. I'm not really a 'fan' of most things I just enjoy (certainly not of the HP books), but I still need to basically feel good about it.

I agree it's about making the author look coherent more than anything. In some circumstances (like the QaF US situation where knowing intent clarified the canon that was there because of a lot of fans' preconceptions), I guess it helps canon, but generally it doesn't work like that, yeah.

[malafede.livejournal.com]

I think the debate-being-independent is apparently a J issue, btw :D For me there is no separation between liking to think at all and liking to think because I like it (ie, I'm hugely motivated by preference in general). While I like 'making things work', I don't like doing things I really like if I don't like the circumstances. I'm lazy and flippant that way :> In other words, it's a personality-based preference which leads to me just being rather picky in general :D (...it also hounds me at school, as you can imagine.....)

Heh, yeah. I think the J acts differently whether you're emotionally involved or not, meaning we can get sarcastic, paranoid and pissy when we're involved, but we don't have to be. Even when you're detached, you're driven to offer judgements, which is why the accusations of bitterness when the criticism is particularly harsh don't work for me. I don't have to be angry to be critical! I think people jump to the conclusion that you're bitter (and angry) because they're assuming a fan is emotionally involved all the time, or that if a person is devoting their time and efforts to tear apart something they are emotionally involved anyway. Poor misunderstood INFJs :( Nobody gets our fetish for pointing out that everything sucks.

Being a fan -- I wonder what that even means at this point. The way fandom evolved, you can enjoy being in it and engaging other fans without feeling particularly good about the canon. I feel various degrees of say, admiration and affection towards certain canons (and different degrees of the same towards their authors), but I don't know how else to define myself for being a (satisfied or dissatisfied) viewer who is in the fandom. I can tell you that I'm a fan of Naruto and BSG, but I don't think I'm a fan of HP, even though I enjoy parts of it.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

You know, maybe 'fan' should be someone who's into the material a lot-- more than a casual reader/viewer (since that's its straightforward meaning), and fandom should just get its head out of its ass as to allowing outside or academic-style critique/commentary (...and even heckling). What you're really more into is the academic approach with HP-- not that emotionally involved/happily involved at least, but interested in the ideas being raised or interested in the types of discussion. Most fans just aren't that into that sort of thing, even the ones that like meta & even most academician fans tend to at least enjoy their subjects, so. :> The tendency to think most about what you like isn't that rare even among analysts or TJs, even if 'like' != emotional involvement.

I guess I'd say I don't respect/admire HP but I enjoy it-- I have a childish glee at the fanart, enjoy the book covers (as you know, ehehe) and try not to analyze it to death tooooo much. Initially I hated it, and that just meant I hated the world for liking it & it being everywhere, so this is much more comfortable ^^;;

[discordiana.livejournal.com]

I was actually thinking yesterday after reading on Enneagrams that certain types aren't cut for fandom. Like, a Six like me, we can enjoy ourselves reasonably for a month or so before we start zooming in on the flaws. Of course the other side to this is that a Six can become the staunchest supporter of any given canon once the canon has, er, proven itself, so who knows.

I also think the tendency of INFJs to always want to observe and dissect things (to positive or negative evaluations) well, doesn't necessarily make them incompatible with canon, but could annoy fans who are in it mostly for the love and squee -- oldest debate in fandom?

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I am confused, because we always kind of butt heads on this 'cause I guess within the text, I'm always saying 'well, let's just go with what Harry's thinking/meaning to do' and you're always like 'but the fans! but JKR! but meta-role & intent/approval!' and so on :)) Though I guess that's talking about slightly different things, it's still about how one explains things in canon. Like, saying Harry's the author's darling and therefore you have to judge his actions/thoughts differently-- that's not Watsonian, though neither is it purely Doylist, but it -feels- Doylist to me, y'know? I'm totally with you when you say the only way to explain the character is the text, 'cause everything else explains the author :D Definitely :D

To me, the question of authorial intent is ever so slightly different; it's not trying to explain something through deux ex machina (from the outside), more nudge you in a certain direction that's supported by the text partly because that's what you're 'really' seeing. This gets tricky, obviously, but usually if I reread or think about it I can see how the text does support whatever the author's intent is, it's just that it's maybe badly communicated or something. Like the people who 'saw' H/Hr as 'intended' were reading different books than JKR was writing (like the way they kept comparing it to 'traditional' stories and romance templates), and I think that's important. Your Reader Response may be telling you this is a Grand Romance, for instance, but if the author is writing a thriller, then your interpretation is just wrong. But usually people aren't as stupid/deluded as the super-extreme H/Hr shippers....

To me it's not about ownership at all, though umm, obviously I'm not into that, and I don't even have any particular moral caveats. It's not 'wrong' to me personally to plagiarize, even, I just think it's pathetic & distasteful (lying and cheating in general just annoy me but they're too widespread and bred into human nature for me to get all huffy-- it would seem hypocritical). People who debate about fanfic just generally annoy me 'cause I feel there's no leg to stand on when people are saying 'don't write harmless stories set in my universe'; that's too much chutzpah for words. 'Don't -sell- stories' is one thing-- writing isn't something that's up to anyone to debate as far as I'm concerned, anymore than it's anyone's business whom I write love-letters to if I'm not selling them; of course, 'publishing' on the web or in zines is what makes things tricky, and it's not helped by people trying to make money through cons or fanart :/ Meh. Basically, I think the author 'controls' their text as far as copyright and while they write it; how they control -other people's creativity- is the question, given it's not infringing on anything. It's not so much that I'd want to stop them from having control so much as I don't see how they could, in fact, have any to start with :>

[malafede.livejournal.com]

I'm always saying 'well, let's just go with what Harry's thinking/meaning to do' and you're always like 'but the fans! but JKR! but meta-role & intent/approval!'

Well, theoretically when I say things like that I am no longer talking about the text but talking about the author and/or the fans. I think it would be weird if being more for Watsonian theories meant you can no longer comment on the author -- like, then you'd never be able to say someone sucks :D Oh noes :D

It's not that you're using the author to explain the text, it's just that you're choosing to explain the author. I don't think my dislike for glorified characters (ie the more the author wants me to like them the more I dislike them) is in contradiction with a Watsonian approach -- it's an emotional reaction, not an analysis. *Then*, when you analyse you can explain why these characters suck because they're made up almost entirely of informed attributes but the text itself doesn't offer real proof of their awesomosity. :D

As you say, authorial intent *is* interesting, but not because it explains the text. It's because it's interesting to see what personal reasons, ideology etc motivated the author, why s/he made certain narrative choices, etc. And I'm not really one who says the Reader Response theory validates *all* responses, because the reading has to be logical and coherent with the text. H/Hr is invalid not because is doesn't stand up to JKR's declared intent, but because it doesn't stand up to the text.

When I said moral ownership (and I may be confused on the lingo) I meant the right to claim the characters/situations/world as your creations. Anyway, I tend to think most anti-fanfic arguments are kinda pathetic, because all seem to stem from either megalomaniac attitudes of the author either a complex some readers have towards the author. They really blow up the power the author has beyond writing the words -- I'm with you, authors have no control over the perceptions and judgements of the readers, but many anti-fanfic people seem to think they should. Not to mention the hysterical rhetorics about hurt feelings -- that's just plain unhealthy.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well, in your case, it's not so much I'm surprised you comment on the author/fans as the fact is, for a long time you -mostly- commented on those subjects :> Probably 'cause they annoyed you most, but you see where I'm coming from, right :> Aaaand also in your case, I do notice 'explaining the author' bleeds into your attitudes towards the text :> :>

The funny thing is, I too hate 'glorified' (or fake, or over-the-top and unnatural in any way) characters (like the Dursleys issue that first turned me off PS when I initially saw it), and yeah, that's an emotional reaction, definitely. :D However, I suppose we're using the Watsonian approach in different ways-- I think in that post, it was implied it'd be used to 'patch holes' & explain apparent character/plot inconsistencies but from the within, something like a closed circle, or A<-->A (as compared to B-->A of the Doylists); what always set me back is that mostly you have a sort of A-->[B]-->A triangular approach where 'B' is the author/extratextual meta, and 'A' is the text-- so you're using the text to justify a critical/deconstructive claim rather than having the basic purpose of studying how it works & providing analytical bridges where things get murky. This is still valid, but my point that is that it seems -different-. I think neither Doylists nor Watsonians are doing what I'd seriously call criticism, y'know? It's a more intrinsically fannish tinkering/meta.

You're right that H/Hr is actually -invalid- because of the text; that's why I guess I agree with blacksatinrose that the best uses for extratextual meta and/or questions of authorial intent are to clarify things that the text always did support, but for some reason a reader needed 'help' to see it :>

[discordiana.livejournal.com]

Well, in your case, it's not so much I'm surprised you comment on the author/fans as the fact is, for a long time you -mostly- commented on those subjects :> Probably 'cause they annoyed you most, but you see where I'm coming from, right :> Aaaand also in your case, I do notice 'explaining the author' bleeds into your attitudes towards the text :> :>

Well, you said it. If I'm more annoyed at fans or an author's attitude, I'm likely to spend some time on it. And impressions of the author's motive (like pushing a character too much) colour my feelings towards the character. I mantain it's a separate issue. Like I said, there's discussion of the author's choices and there's discussion of the character's choices -- they're separate, and they both can happen at the same time without bleeding into each other. When you say my explaining the author bleeds into my attitude towards the text, do you mean emotional attitude or my analysis? I think it's okay as far as emotional reactions go (there's no right or wrong there) but it's bad if it influences your analysis or used as evidence for whatever theory about the character's actions (as opposed to the way it's written -- author's choice!) I admir I did this. But, well, I was wrong :P

so you're using the text to justify a critical/deconstructive claim rather than having the basic purpose of studying how it works & providing analytical bridges where things get murky. This is still valid, but my point that is that it seems -different-. I think neither Doylists nor Watsonians are doing what I'd seriously call criticism, y'know? It's a more intrinsically fannish tinkering/meta.

Isn't it possible to be Watsonian when analysing the text, and also enjoy a different type of discussion (about the author?) Of course you'd use the text when commenting on someone's writing -- that's what they write. It's just seeing the text from different angles.

You're right that H/Hr is actually -invalid- because of the text; that's why I guess I agree with blacksatinrose that the best uses for extratextual meta and/or questions of authorial intent are to clarify things that the text always did support, but for some reason a reader needed 'help' to see it :>

I think it's interesting, because I've been reading JRRM's statements about how he doesn't want his books to be read from the POV that there's villains and good guys, *but* a lot of readers still apply this mindset to his characters. Even though I agree with him and generally think his text supports him, I'd feel uncomfortable using it in an argument with someone promoting the idea that a certain character is a villain. But you're right that pointing out the author agrees gives a larger impact to an argument that the text isn't black and white. But is it just a rhetoric tool or is it also logical??

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I wonder what 'villain' means; is it a moral judgment (ie, 'this person's wrong') or a description of a literary role (ie, 'this character serves the traditional function of a villain in this story, and [by implication] it's a morality play')? One's a literary criticism (ie, correctable through referral to the author somewhat) and the other's just a subjective reaction to the text. You can -prove- that a character isn't a 'villain' in the archetypal sense, but you can't really prove they're not a bad guy except very circumstantially, y'know what I mean? I think, for instance that it's more 'correct' from a lit-crit pov to interpret Harry as 'the hero' and not as some bastard that got lucky-- but if you (while interpreting him as such) find issues with the portrayal on those terms, one has to consider it. There's a boundary between 'explaining' & 'explaining away', definitely.

And yes, I think it's bled a lot of times into your analysis especially when you're feeling personally offended and touchy. I mean, y'know, 'Watsonian' isn't the same thing as 'objective'-- and while you can and do try to be objective, I rarely see you look at Harry 'as is' without the Slytherin slant, I guess. It gets more complicated when the character exists in a world where there are radically different internal philosophies at play-- but I maintain to follow that type of meta to its logical conclusion, you'd have to judge each character entirely within their own philosophy & context. That is, just as I would accept Harry's pov, I would accept Draco's opposing philosophy-pov equally, just using it to explain rather than justify. I think this line between 'explain' & 'justify' works for you with Draco, but with Harry [or character-you-have-issues-with, whatever], you get defensive or more likely to see explaining as justifying sometimes & so there's resistance. ^^;