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shadowkatFlying cockroach =0/ Me=1.
It was a battle, and really there should be no such things as flying cockroaches anyhow, let alone big ones. But I outsmarted it. When it disappeared on me (hate it when bugs do that), I set my vaccume cleaner up and lay in wait, so sure enough when it crawled out of hiding again - up I scooped it.
Hee.
Watching the Wire, have come to the conclusion that the union storyline is a bit heavy-handed and shall we say a touch "very special episode" of the week or preachy in places. It's okay up until the last three episodes. Also the continuing theme that the FBI is a bunch of incompetent and parasitical SOBS is getting old. I see that as a definite weakness in the plot structure. Clearly whoever is writing this has a beef with the Feds. The Feds can be annoying, trust me, I know, but not that annoying. And...I'm not sure the writers are as knowledgable or comfortable with the dockworker storyline as they are the projects - the Greeks are a bit too one-dimensional evil. The evil immigrant story trope, which I don't think is quite that black and white. They do a far better job with Avon and Stringer, who are more complex.
No, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the waterfront story didn't quite work as well as planned, most likely because the writers were writing what they didn't know that much about - and it shows? Or maybe what they felt too strongly about? Not sure which.
Didn't feel this way in episodes 8 and 9, just 10 and 11...not sure what 12 will do.
Work was fun. When I was spell-checking a document in word - it was acting weird. Kept telling me words that I know for a fact are spelled correctly were wrong or did not exist and providing the oddest substitutes. Finally realized that I had accidentally set the language default to French.
French being the only second language I can halfway understand - I didn't notice it. Also, the English language has incorporated quite a few French words over time. "Completion" being amongst them.
Glanced at the Time article on fanfic - two things struck me while scanning it. One - the only fanfic they mentioned was mainstream stuff like Harry Potter and Twilight, not the true cult, under the radar stuff such as Buffy, X-men, Farscape, Doctor Who, etc. But the kids stuff. Two- their description of fanfic made me laugh out loud - Fan fiction is what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker.
They don't do it for money. That's not what it's about. The writers write it and put it up online just for the satisfaction. They're fans, but they're not silent, couchbound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and they talk back to the culture in its own language.
Actually I think a better description is one a friend provided while I was discussing it over the phone one night..."it sounds like what you have are a lot of really creative and imaginative people who are frustrated and unable to express their creativity through traditional mediums, so they've found other ways to do it, on the fringes. They are in effect playing with the story. "
I've written fanfic in flashes, but I'm not comfortable enough with it to really share it. Meta is easier to share. Fanfic feels less easy and as you all know, I'm hyper critical. Being online has made me more so in some respects - which has had the unfortunate side effect of putting a crimp in my creative writing. For some the online world frees their creative story-telling, for me...it has in some respects created a perpetual writer's block - I find myself increasingly self-conscious. For example - I wrote a fanfic about McNulty and Omar chatting in my head, but I didn't have the guts to write it out. Or River Song and the Doctor meeting up. Not used to showing my stories with people.
The sci-fi novel in my head which has elements of real person fanfic intertwined - not so sure I can bring myself to write. Weird. You'd think having shared all this other stuff, I'd have no issues with it. But because the scant amount I did write was greeted with such a lukewarm or negative response?
I'm guessing I decided why bother, I'll just keep it to myself. I wonder how many fanfic writers do the same thing? It's why I stopped discussing it in my journal...because I began to realize it's a sensitive topic...it is in some respects or can be more personal than well saying what you did today.
You are exposing things that can be judge in ways that you never intended. Writing fiction is in some respects far more brutal to the ego than non-fiction. For if it is to work it must be fiction based on some personal truth and you have to be good enough to hide it so that no one can quite tell what that personal truth even is.
I've read a lot of comments this week on fanfic on flist. I don't know about your flist, but 70% of mine is basically people who intermittently write fanfic. Some more and longer than others. The comments that stuck with me were:
1. Fanfic that woobiefies a character or is a grudge fic in favor of that character causes me to despise the character, even if that character is never woobiefied on the show. "Woobie" is as near as I can figure a fandom term for - I believe an amoral or anti-hero male character who has been made to be vulnerable or romanticized to the degree in which all his wrongs are sort of justified?? And the victim or heroine is well - it was all her fault? Or she's made to see that she just has to forgive him! Example? Spike. The bad guy in DS9 who raped Kira and I can't remember the name of?? And Scorpius. Jamie Lannister may be another one. (Note: the woobiefying only happens in the fanfic not on screen. (it's a made-up word - that appears to work as a noun, verb and adjective - and how people who don't speak English as their first language translate this - I've no clue. But considering the blogger who used it is German, I'm guessing it doesn't matter? ] My immediate response was - gee that's powerful fanfic to have actually made you dislike a character, considering none of this happened on-screen. OR the writer must be really good for you to actually read a story that depicts a character in a way that you do not agree with and dislike. Otherwise why would you bother with it or read it? I mean, it is fanfic. It's not like you were handed it or anything. Fanfic requires a bit of effort to find and read, granted it is free - but you have to read it on the computer, or download it or print it off. It boggles my mind when people state that they hate Spike or (fill in the blank) based on a fanfic or a series of fanfic that they read. Wow. That's what I call dedication. To fanfic, not to Spike. [For the record? While I read just about any fanfic I could find on the Spike character at one point, I was always able to separate the show from the fanfic. It's why I can read AU fanfic, non-cannon, All Human, etc. For me? Fanfic really isn't that different than meta - it's just a creative way for someone to provide their opinion or perspective on the characters and show.
I will most likely stick with my reading of the show, regardless of what they wrote. I'm stubborn that way. It takes a lot to change my mind. Woobie Spike I sort of enjoyed in Fanfic. Although it did admittedly get old after a bit. Also it bore little resemblance to the Spike I had in my head, so it was hard to take the writer seriously. This is basically just explaining why it makes no sense to me when someone says that fanfic can change how they feel about a character. Unless it is really really good fanfic...]
2. Have you ever run across a situation where you remembered the canon being one way, only to discover when you went back to look at it in order to fix a plot bunny in your fanfic - you were wrong? And it just is not there? (OMG - all the time. But not necessarily in regards to fanfic. This happened to me while discussing Game of Thrones - I remembered the first book wrong. It also happens at work quite a bit - we have all these procedures and regulations? Well, occasionally you become convinced that the contract or procedure or reg says something, that you remember it saying something - and someone calls you on it. Where is the back-up for that? So you go back and it's not there. You could swear it was there. That you saw it. But you can't find it. Highly irritating. Had a lengthy discussion with a co-worker about this very thing today. We were commiserating over our inability to find things that we knew were in the procedures but weren't because the stupid procedures aren't clearly laid out and can be interpreted any which way. Sort of...like Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer actually. This may explain why loosely written procedures don't phase me.)
I don't know. I go in phases regarding fanfic. I'm between fandoms at the moment. Lost all interest in Buffy for some reason, not quite sure what did it exactly, guessing it was a combination of things or just timing...but at any rate that ended the desire to read fanfic on the series. When an obsession leaves me, it really leaves me. Tried to get into Doctor Who...but there's not enough tv show that is accessible to me. (Note accessible to me. I know there's over 60 years of Who out there, but it would require a lot of money and work for me to get a hold of it. Also...it's too much of an anthology or episodic style tale. I don't tend to get fannish about stuff like that.) Farscape?
Not enough content. It lasts about six months - I read tons of fic, then I run out. Very small and somewhat dead fandom. So...I'm a gal without a fandom...which means no interest in fanfic.
Fanfic is a weird thing. You only read it if you are fannish about a character or story. It's not something you are going to read if you aren't. The writers don't really bother giving you an in depth description of the characters - they assume you know them like the back of your hand. Often fanfic won't have any physical description at all. Or if it does, it will be no more than hair color, eye color and muscle tone. Also the writer generally assumes you know the story it's based, what came before, and the character's back stories. This isn't something you can sort of pick up cold without having seen the tv show. (I know I tried to read Queer Ass Folk Fanfic and got horribly lost. Also
tried to read Star Gate fanfic - and ditto.) Another thing about fanfic? It's mostly fantasy or sci-fi universes, although I have read and seen fanfic for the West Wing and House and (ahem) Teletubbies (don't ask - it's gone now, fanfic.net got nervous). I'd say mostly women write it, but that's not true. There's too many men on my flist writing the stuff. I'd also say it was mostly romances, but again not true. Most of the shows and books that inspire it are ones that leave the reader unsatisfied, they want more, there are gaps in the storyline, the character's arc feels incomplete, or something about that character hasn't been explored to the writer/reader's satisfaction, or the writer/reader may just be sexually turned on by the character and writing a fantasy to well...wank off to for lack of a better or more diplomatic term.
I know people who scorn it. Most of the people in my offline life do and have. It's not something one talks about to everyone. I'd never mention it do people at work or at church or most of my family.
Even people I know online scorn it and make fun of it. They don't understand it. It is a much maligned medium. Is it legal? Yes and no. Depends on the use. The internet - being the wild-west of the info age - provides fanfic with a level of distribution that is simply unheard of. There are kids who have been known to text entire fanfics of Twilight to friends. There is such a thing as twitter fanfic drabbles (yes a 140 character fanfic, and no, I can't imagine it either).
My own feelings regarding it are a mixed bag. I find it fascinating as an art form and I'll leave it at that. Because this was supposed to be a quick post and it's frigging one am and I'm probably just talking to myself anyhow.
It was a battle, and really there should be no such things as flying cockroaches anyhow, let alone big ones. But I outsmarted it. When it disappeared on me (hate it when bugs do that), I set my vaccume cleaner up and lay in wait, so sure enough when it crawled out of hiding again - up I scooped it.
Hee.
Watching the Wire, have come to the conclusion that the union storyline is a bit heavy-handed and shall we say a touch "very special episode" of the week or preachy in places. It's okay up until the last three episodes. Also the continuing theme that the FBI is a bunch of incompetent and parasitical SOBS is getting old. I see that as a definite weakness in the plot structure. Clearly whoever is writing this has a beef with the Feds. The Feds can be annoying, trust me, I know, but not that annoying. And...I'm not sure the writers are as knowledgable or comfortable with the dockworker storyline as they are the projects - the Greeks are a bit too one-dimensional evil. The evil immigrant story trope, which I don't think is quite that black and white. They do a far better job with Avon and Stringer, who are more complex.
No, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the waterfront story didn't quite work as well as planned, most likely because the writers were writing what they didn't know that much about - and it shows? Or maybe what they felt too strongly about? Not sure which.
Didn't feel this way in episodes 8 and 9, just 10 and 11...not sure what 12 will do.
Work was fun. When I was spell-checking a document in word - it was acting weird. Kept telling me words that I know for a fact are spelled correctly were wrong or did not exist and providing the oddest substitutes. Finally realized that I had accidentally set the language default to French.
French being the only second language I can halfway understand - I didn't notice it. Also, the English language has incorporated quite a few French words over time. "Completion" being amongst them.
Glanced at the Time article on fanfic - two things struck me while scanning it. One - the only fanfic they mentioned was mainstream stuff like Harry Potter and Twilight, not the true cult, under the radar stuff such as Buffy, X-men, Farscape, Doctor Who, etc. But the kids stuff. Two- their description of fanfic made me laugh out loud - Fan fiction is what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker.
They don't do it for money. That's not what it's about. The writers write it and put it up online just for the satisfaction. They're fans, but they're not silent, couchbound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and they talk back to the culture in its own language.
Actually I think a better description is one a friend provided while I was discussing it over the phone one night..."it sounds like what you have are a lot of really creative and imaginative people who are frustrated and unable to express their creativity through traditional mediums, so they've found other ways to do it, on the fringes. They are in effect playing with the story. "
I've written fanfic in flashes, but I'm not comfortable enough with it to really share it. Meta is easier to share. Fanfic feels less easy and as you all know, I'm hyper critical. Being online has made me more so in some respects - which has had the unfortunate side effect of putting a crimp in my creative writing. For some the online world frees their creative story-telling, for me...it has in some respects created a perpetual writer's block - I find myself increasingly self-conscious. For example - I wrote a fanfic about McNulty and Omar chatting in my head, but I didn't have the guts to write it out. Or River Song and the Doctor meeting up. Not used to showing my stories with people.
The sci-fi novel in my head which has elements of real person fanfic intertwined - not so sure I can bring myself to write. Weird. You'd think having shared all this other stuff, I'd have no issues with it. But because the scant amount I did write was greeted with such a lukewarm or negative response?
I'm guessing I decided why bother, I'll just keep it to myself. I wonder how many fanfic writers do the same thing? It's why I stopped discussing it in my journal...because I began to realize it's a sensitive topic...it is in some respects or can be more personal than well saying what you did today.
You are exposing things that can be judge in ways that you never intended. Writing fiction is in some respects far more brutal to the ego than non-fiction. For if it is to work it must be fiction based on some personal truth and you have to be good enough to hide it so that no one can quite tell what that personal truth even is.
I've read a lot of comments this week on fanfic on flist. I don't know about your flist, but 70% of mine is basically people who intermittently write fanfic. Some more and longer than others. The comments that stuck with me were:
1. Fanfic that woobiefies a character or is a grudge fic in favor of that character causes me to despise the character, even if that character is never woobiefied on the show. "Woobie" is as near as I can figure a fandom term for - I believe an amoral or anti-hero male character who has been made to be vulnerable or romanticized to the degree in which all his wrongs are sort of justified?? And the victim or heroine is well - it was all her fault? Or she's made to see that she just has to forgive him! Example? Spike. The bad guy in DS9 who raped Kira and I can't remember the name of?? And Scorpius. Jamie Lannister may be another one. (Note: the woobiefying only happens in the fanfic not on screen. (it's a made-up word - that appears to work as a noun, verb and adjective - and how people who don't speak English as their first language translate this - I've no clue. But considering the blogger who used it is German, I'm guessing it doesn't matter? ] My immediate response was - gee that's powerful fanfic to have actually made you dislike a character, considering none of this happened on-screen. OR the writer must be really good for you to actually read a story that depicts a character in a way that you do not agree with and dislike. Otherwise why would you bother with it or read it? I mean, it is fanfic. It's not like you were handed it or anything. Fanfic requires a bit of effort to find and read, granted it is free - but you have to read it on the computer, or download it or print it off. It boggles my mind when people state that they hate Spike or (fill in the blank) based on a fanfic or a series of fanfic that they read. Wow. That's what I call dedication. To fanfic, not to Spike. [For the record? While I read just about any fanfic I could find on the Spike character at one point, I was always able to separate the show from the fanfic. It's why I can read AU fanfic, non-cannon, All Human, etc. For me? Fanfic really isn't that different than meta - it's just a creative way for someone to provide their opinion or perspective on the characters and show.
I will most likely stick with my reading of the show, regardless of what they wrote. I'm stubborn that way. It takes a lot to change my mind. Woobie Spike I sort of enjoyed in Fanfic. Although it did admittedly get old after a bit. Also it bore little resemblance to the Spike I had in my head, so it was hard to take the writer seriously. This is basically just explaining why it makes no sense to me when someone says that fanfic can change how they feel about a character. Unless it is really really good fanfic...]
2. Have you ever run across a situation where you remembered the canon being one way, only to discover when you went back to look at it in order to fix a plot bunny in your fanfic - you were wrong? And it just is not there? (OMG - all the time. But not necessarily in regards to fanfic. This happened to me while discussing Game of Thrones - I remembered the first book wrong. It also happens at work quite a bit - we have all these procedures and regulations? Well, occasionally you become convinced that the contract or procedure or reg says something, that you remember it saying something - and someone calls you on it. Where is the back-up for that? So you go back and it's not there. You could swear it was there. That you saw it. But you can't find it. Highly irritating. Had a lengthy discussion with a co-worker about this very thing today. We were commiserating over our inability to find things that we knew were in the procedures but weren't because the stupid procedures aren't clearly laid out and can be interpreted any which way. Sort of...like Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer actually. This may explain why loosely written procedures don't phase me.)
I don't know. I go in phases regarding fanfic. I'm between fandoms at the moment. Lost all interest in Buffy for some reason, not quite sure what did it exactly, guessing it was a combination of things or just timing...but at any rate that ended the desire to read fanfic on the series. When an obsession leaves me, it really leaves me. Tried to get into Doctor Who...but there's not enough tv show that is accessible to me. (Note accessible to me. I know there's over 60 years of Who out there, but it would require a lot of money and work for me to get a hold of it. Also...it's too much of an anthology or episodic style tale. I don't tend to get fannish about stuff like that.) Farscape?
Not enough content. It lasts about six months - I read tons of fic, then I run out. Very small and somewhat dead fandom. So...I'm a gal without a fandom...which means no interest in fanfic.
Fanfic is a weird thing. You only read it if you are fannish about a character or story. It's not something you are going to read if you aren't. The writers don't really bother giving you an in depth description of the characters - they assume you know them like the back of your hand. Often fanfic won't have any physical description at all. Or if it does, it will be no more than hair color, eye color and muscle tone. Also the writer generally assumes you know the story it's based, what came before, and the character's back stories. This isn't something you can sort of pick up cold without having seen the tv show. (I know I tried to read Queer Ass Folk Fanfic and got horribly lost. Also
tried to read Star Gate fanfic - and ditto.) Another thing about fanfic? It's mostly fantasy or sci-fi universes, although I have read and seen fanfic for the West Wing and House and (ahem) Teletubbies (don't ask - it's gone now, fanfic.net got nervous). I'd say mostly women write it, but that's not true. There's too many men on my flist writing the stuff. I'd also say it was mostly romances, but again not true. Most of the shows and books that inspire it are ones that leave the reader unsatisfied, they want more, there are gaps in the storyline, the character's arc feels incomplete, or something about that character hasn't been explored to the writer/reader's satisfaction, or the writer/reader may just be sexually turned on by the character and writing a fantasy to well...wank off to for lack of a better or more diplomatic term.
I know people who scorn it. Most of the people in my offline life do and have. It's not something one talks about to everyone. I'd never mention it do people at work or at church or most of my family.
Even people I know online scorn it and make fun of it. They don't understand it. It is a much maligned medium. Is it legal? Yes and no. Depends on the use. The internet - being the wild-west of the info age - provides fanfic with a level of distribution that is simply unheard of. There are kids who have been known to text entire fanfics of Twilight to friends. There is such a thing as twitter fanfic drabbles (yes a 140 character fanfic, and no, I can't imagine it either).
My own feelings regarding it are a mixed bag. I find it fascinating as an art form and I'll leave it at that. Because this was supposed to be a quick post and it's frigging one am and I'm probably just talking to myself anyhow.
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 10:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 02:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 06:38 pm (UTC)(Example: Spike).
From a system standpoint - you are correct he tends to throw a pebble in the clock-works, often unknowingly or by accident. While he doesn't necessarily change or fix the system, he doesn't have that much power, so much as merely expose its inherent flaws. In S2 - he does it three times - 1)finding the floating body of the girl and pressing her on homicide (if the port authority had kept the case it would have just been a cold case for years - he's absolutely right about that), 2) figuring out that the girls suffocated in the trunk are a homicide case or murder and again sticking his old homicide division with the cases (this spurs Rawls and a few other people into action...so that when Prez persuades his father-in-law Valcheck to create the wire detail, that group ends up linking up with the other one. In effect leading to McNulty leaving the boat and getting back on the detail. So in this instance? McNulty's actions lead to a good result for McNulty.)
3) his friendship with the FBI, brings in the FBI - who in turn, inadvertently leaks the case to the bad guys.
I love catalyste characters or "chaos bringers" (although I think that may be an overstatement or giving McNulty too much credit).
They stir the pot a bit, make things interesting. TV shows that do not have these characters as regulars or protagonists always tend to lose me after a bit.
Chaotic characters
Date: 2011-07-09 10:18 pm (UTC)If I were to identify a "chaotic" character in The Wire (and I'm not sure I would), it would be Omar. He's the one who acts independently, outside of any institution or control. His robbery of the stash leads to the murder of Brandon, which leads to Wallace's murder by Bodie and Dee's alienation and eventual murder. It also leads to Omar's attempted murder of Avon. I think you could argue for other effects as well.
Re: Chaotic characters
Date: 2011-07-10 03:00 am (UTC)By the way, after watching the last two episodes? I decided you had a point - S2 is rather preachy. The way they concluded that whole union story line was a bit...outside the general tone. And none of those characters appear to carry over to S3 as far as I can tell. (saw part of episode 1 of S3, but too brain dead to watch now.)
no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 02:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 04:10 pm (UTC)Word. I've been thinking about this a lot lately and am considering gathering up some Comp majors I know to write a paper on the connection between meta and fanfic. It's a fascinating medium that isn't given a lot of cred.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-10 03:10 am (UTC)Other fanfics will finish stories they felt the writer left hanging due to conditions beyond the writers control (the series got cancelled prematurely or wasn't given the opportunity to finish.). Such as what happened in the alley after the end of the Angel series finale? OR they will fill in gaps - pieces of the story the writer left out. Such as what happened immediately after Buffy rescued Spike in Showtime - did she take him back to her basement or nurse his wounds...Often fanfic is a way to address those items that the original storyteller deems unimportant or unnecessary to the plot but the fan requires and needs. And sometimes, particularly in the case of Buffy comics, fanfic fixes the story or fanwanks plot bunnies or mistakes in it so the fan can still enjoy it. Fans often edit the original writers story through their fanfic.