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Dec. 14th, 2009 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatI hate packing for a trip - in general, because I've never have any clue what to bring and I always bring the wrong things. And end up only wearing half of them. Just finished packing for trip on Wed, and no clue why I bothered since I'll probably repack tomorrow and change everything. (Impossible to pack for HH weather - it can be anywhere from 70 to 36 degrees this time of year. I googled it and according to the weather channel it's low 50s and high 30s, which makes me think - layers, turtle necks, long pants, and sweaters.)
Fanfic.
Fanfic is something I discovered in the 21st century. Or in the last decade. It was an online discovery that I did not know existed. What happened was I wandered online after the Buffy episode Wrecked, hunting spoilers or anything to tide me over until late January, the episode aired in the first week of Dec (so I had a little over a month to wait) and it was a cliff-hanger! Mean writers. Also, I was traumatized by a lot of things that had been going on at the time both in the city (*cough*911*cough) and at work (*cough*serialbullybossfromhell*cough), not to mention bored out of my mind, and hunting something...to distract myself and cope with the stress and trauma. This was when I was playing with intellectual property law at evil library reference company. Fanfic was like this naughty revelation...because you know, I was working as an "electronic" rights and permissions manager at a publishing company, and in the publishing community - "fanfic" was frowned upon. Reading fanfic was a bit like flipping the publishing community the bird.
Particularly the erotic fanfic. Still feels a bit like that actually, I'm really getting off on the fact that you can write and publish an entire novel online - share it with over a million people, win awards, and get tons of comments, and never ever interact with a "publisher". Heck one guy even started a fanfic convention for himself, featuring his own Harry Potter fanfic, and apparently got people to pay to come to it? This amuses me. I'm not sure it's exactly legal or ethical, but it is certainly amusing. (I admittedly have unresolved issues with the NYC publishing world. It's EVIL, I tell you. EVIIIIL!)
I like the subversive nature of fanfiction, the rebellious quality to it. And the creativity, how people play with old tropes, often recreating them, or sometimes subverting them. Slash fascinates me - because it is often written by heterosexuals for a heterosexual audience, while I know het fanfic writers, who are homosexual. There's several lesbians online who write excellent Spike/Buffy fanfic. While most of the slash writers that I know of - who write Spike/Angel, Willow/Tara, Buffy/Faith are heterosexual. The assumption is it would be the opposite, not true. Was trying to explain to a couple of people this summer the appeal of slash to heterosexuals and got no where. It made no sense to them, was completely outside their frame of reference. They could not imagine it.
Fanfiction also will often underline an annoying trope in romance fiction - explain to me why I can't abide it any more, or why it continues to turn me on. For example - I've come to the conclusion recently that the romeo/juliet trope annoys me, I only like it if the conflict is internal not external. And the Princess/Damsel trope annoys me even more - have little patience for it. I like Rescuer/Resuceme - but it has to be written well and both characters have to be strong. Poor little weak princess bit...gets on my nerves. My favorite cartoon Princess - was the one in Shrek or in Battle of The Planets. This may explain why I find the Twilight series undigestible. It gives me acid reflux in the worst way. Also may explain, why I adored Farscape to pieces...it did this trope rather well.
Of course, I told and did fanfic myself as a child ...just not in a forum and not always on paper. So, fanfic is one of my discoveries in the last decade. It didn't change my life like meta did, but it did affect it.
As an aside, best tv shows of the decade? Right now I nominate Farscape, BattleStar Galatica, and Buffy. Buffy get's on the list because I loved the last four seasons that aired between 2000 and 2003. Heck it gets on the list for OMWF, The Body, Restless, Who are You, Sleeper, Never Leave Me, Conversations with Dead People, Dead Things, Smashed, Lies My Parents Told Me,
Selfless, and Beneath Me.
Fanfic.
Fanfic is something I discovered in the 21st century. Or in the last decade. It was an online discovery that I did not know existed. What happened was I wandered online after the Buffy episode Wrecked, hunting spoilers or anything to tide me over until late January, the episode aired in the first week of Dec (so I had a little over a month to wait) and it was a cliff-hanger! Mean writers. Also, I was traumatized by a lot of things that had been going on at the time both in the city (*cough*911*cough) and at work (*cough*serialbullybossfromhell*cough), not to mention bored out of my mind, and hunting something...to distract myself and cope with the stress and trauma. This was when I was playing with intellectual property law at evil library reference company. Fanfic was like this naughty revelation...because you know, I was working as an "electronic" rights and permissions manager at a publishing company, and in the publishing community - "fanfic" was frowned upon. Reading fanfic was a bit like flipping the publishing community the bird.
Particularly the erotic fanfic. Still feels a bit like that actually, I'm really getting off on the fact that you can write and publish an entire novel online - share it with over a million people, win awards, and get tons of comments, and never ever interact with a "publisher". Heck one guy even started a fanfic convention for himself, featuring his own Harry Potter fanfic, and apparently got people to pay to come to it? This amuses me. I'm not sure it's exactly legal or ethical, but it is certainly amusing. (I admittedly have unresolved issues with the NYC publishing world. It's EVIL, I tell you. EVIIIIL!)
I like the subversive nature of fanfiction, the rebellious quality to it. And the creativity, how people play with old tropes, often recreating them, or sometimes subverting them. Slash fascinates me - because it is often written by heterosexuals for a heterosexual audience, while I know het fanfic writers, who are homosexual. There's several lesbians online who write excellent Spike/Buffy fanfic. While most of the slash writers that I know of - who write Spike/Angel, Willow/Tara, Buffy/Faith are heterosexual. The assumption is it would be the opposite, not true. Was trying to explain to a couple of people this summer the appeal of slash to heterosexuals and got no where. It made no sense to them, was completely outside their frame of reference. They could not imagine it.
Fanfiction also will often underline an annoying trope in romance fiction - explain to me why I can't abide it any more, or why it continues to turn me on. For example - I've come to the conclusion recently that the romeo/juliet trope annoys me, I only like it if the conflict is internal not external. And the Princess/Damsel trope annoys me even more - have little patience for it. I like Rescuer/Resuceme - but it has to be written well and both characters have to be strong. Poor little weak princess bit...gets on my nerves. My favorite cartoon Princess - was the one in Shrek or in Battle of The Planets. This may explain why I find the Twilight series undigestible. It gives me acid reflux in the worst way. Also may explain, why I adored Farscape to pieces...it did this trope rather well.
Of course, I told and did fanfic myself as a child ...just not in a forum and not always on paper. So, fanfic is one of my discoveries in the last decade. It didn't change my life like meta did, but it did affect it.
As an aside, best tv shows of the decade? Right now I nominate Farscape, BattleStar Galatica, and Buffy. Buffy get's on the list because I loved the last four seasons that aired between 2000 and 2003. Heck it gets on the list for OMWF, The Body, Restless, Who are You, Sleeper, Never Leave Me, Conversations with Dead People, Dead Things, Smashed, Lies My Parents Told Me,
Selfless, and Beneath Me.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-18 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-18 05:01 am (UTC)