Thursday Medley
Sep. 27th, 2012 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
handful_ofdustFinished Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven last night, which may explain why things got as late as they did. Then again, stuff has felt more-than-slightly "off" all week, basically--I sleep late, take my waking slow, eff around and around. Writing this entry is just one more way to eff, really, but I want to get something done before Cal comes home.
While sampling my usual round of blogs, meanwhile, I ran across an entry in which somebody asked whether or not it being obvious that the creators of a given text liked a particular ship was enough to turn audience members off said ship; they cited the anti-Ten/Rose cadre of Doctor Who fandom, as well as the manymanymany Fringe aficionados who can't seem to STFU about Peter/Olivia being "crammed down their throats", as though its prominence merely existed to diminish Olivia's narrative agency. In comments, another person stated that while they wouldn't ship something just because the creators "told" them to, they were okay with creators liking a non-canon ship (the way that the makers of Teen Wolf apparently "like" Derek/Stiles, or Supernatural's current show-runners have given Dean/Castiel emotional/plot device prominence), as long as the creators didn't try to actually write it into canon...because that's their job, I suppose.
It's a conundrum, all right. There doesn't seem to be any sort of "right" answer, except perhaps to simply resign yourself that whatever you do with the story you're telling, there's going to be somebody out there who thinks you're "doin it rong" and is resentful, on some level, that their interpretation of the people and evens you created will never be "privileged" above your own.
I mean, for myself, I enjoyed "my" version of OZ Season Three a lot (the one from "My Wife and my Dead Wife"), but there's no way I thought it was more valid than the actual product--most especially so given the fact that I was straightforwardly concentrating only on the characters I was most interested by, and completely skipping over everybody else. Whereas Tom Fontana had to juggle everybody, and do his level best to give them pretty much equal screen-time while still adding new ones; as a fan of OZ the show, rather than just any given fanfic interpolation of it, I know which one I'd always choose, if I had to.
Ah, well. Fandom and its discontents, Part Eleventy-Million. Here's some links:
Went back to A Podcast to the Curious (http://www.mrjamespodcast.com/episodes/), the M.R. James appreciation podcast series, and listened all the way through their examination of "The Resident at Whitminster", a story I've always really enjoyed. Those guys kick a lot of ass, juxtaposing a wide, catholic understanding of period detail with dry humour and a true admiration for da creep. I could listen to one of those a day and be very, very satisfied.
In other news, my column on the novels of Michael McDowell is finally up at ChiZine.com, here (http://www.chizine.com/savage_mothers.htm#.UGR-4o7FXLY). I think I've noted before that these days, McDowell seems remembered solely as a screenwriter (Beetlejuice, Thinner, The Nightmare Before Christmas, etc.), which really disappoints me. It certainly doesn't help that the fiction he wrote between 1979 and 1987 seems to all be quite firmly out of print, but...he's just so good! And so formative, at least for me.
Over on Tumblr, meanwhile, somebody drew a zombie version of Charlie Prince! It's creepishly Chess-like, though it would be, wouldn't it? Enjoy (http://handful-ofdust.tumblr.com/post/32374497177/whoa-this-looks-disturbingly-like-chess-after-his).
While sampling my usual round of blogs, meanwhile, I ran across an entry in which somebody asked whether or not it being obvious that the creators of a given text liked a particular ship was enough to turn audience members off said ship; they cited the anti-Ten/Rose cadre of Doctor Who fandom, as well as the manymanymany Fringe aficionados who can't seem to STFU about Peter/Olivia being "crammed down their throats", as though its prominence merely existed to diminish Olivia's narrative agency. In comments, another person stated that while they wouldn't ship something just because the creators "told" them to, they were okay with creators liking a non-canon ship (the way that the makers of Teen Wolf apparently "like" Derek/Stiles, or Supernatural's current show-runners have given Dean/Castiel emotional/plot device prominence), as long as the creators didn't try to actually write it into canon...because that's their job, I suppose.
It's a conundrum, all right. There doesn't seem to be any sort of "right" answer, except perhaps to simply resign yourself that whatever you do with the story you're telling, there's going to be somebody out there who thinks you're "doin it rong" and is resentful, on some level, that their interpretation of the people and evens you created will never be "privileged" above your own.
I mean, for myself, I enjoyed "my" version of OZ Season Three a lot (the one from "My Wife and my Dead Wife"), but there's no way I thought it was more valid than the actual product--most especially so given the fact that I was straightforwardly concentrating only on the characters I was most interested by, and completely skipping over everybody else. Whereas Tom Fontana had to juggle everybody, and do his level best to give them pretty much equal screen-time while still adding new ones; as a fan of OZ the show, rather than just any given fanfic interpolation of it, I know which one I'd always choose, if I had to.
Ah, well. Fandom and its discontents, Part Eleventy-Million. Here's some links:
Went back to A Podcast to the Curious (http://www.mrjamespodcast.com/episodes/), the M.R. James appreciation podcast series, and listened all the way through their examination of "The Resident at Whitminster", a story I've always really enjoyed. Those guys kick a lot of ass, juxtaposing a wide, catholic understanding of period detail with dry humour and a true admiration for da creep. I could listen to one of those a day and be very, very satisfied.
In other news, my column on the novels of Michael McDowell is finally up at ChiZine.com, here (http://www.chizine.com/savage_mothers.htm#.UGR-4o7FXLY). I think I've noted before that these days, McDowell seems remembered solely as a screenwriter (Beetlejuice, Thinner, The Nightmare Before Christmas, etc.), which really disappoints me. It certainly doesn't help that the fiction he wrote between 1979 and 1987 seems to all be quite firmly out of print, but...he's just so good! And so formative, at least for me.
Over on Tumblr, meanwhile, somebody drew a zombie version of Charlie Prince! It's creepishly Chess-like, though it would be, wouldn't it? Enjoy (http://handful-ofdust.tumblr.com/post/32374497177/whoa-this-looks-disturbingly-like-chess-after-his).
no subject
Date: 2012-09-27 10:48 pm (UTC)Oh, bless you for putting this so well. This thing where fandom has come to supercede the thing everybody's supposedly built their fandom *around* makes so very little sense to me. Yes, fandom does excellent things and tells excellent stories--many of which TPTB simply can't, either because they're not interested in telling those stories, or are constrained by their medium, networks, censors, the need to hold onto audience and advertisers, etc--but...what about the thing at the base of fandom? (Don't even get me started on people who write fic for shows they don't actually watch, or watch but don't actually like anything about. As the kids say, I CANNOT EVEN.)
For me, fandom and fannish pursuits are adjuncts to the source. The community that fandom creates is fantastic, and the things focused on and created by fandom are (oftentimes) fantastic, but for me, they're not the *point*. And I see no point in getting worked up over whether my 'ship will ~actually happen~ unless, against all logic, it *does* and then proceeds to actually, legitimately, *objectively* ruin the show.
...but then, my priorities are apparently different from other fanpeople's. *hands*
no subject
Date: 2012-09-28 04:01 am (UTC)And as I said over on LJ: The other somewhat creepy quote from the post I've hitherto been paraphrasing, in context, is this:
"I kind of hate KNOWING what the PTB ship or don't. I want them to STFU and tell their own story, even if I dislike it! I MISS THE FOURTH WALL GODAMMIT. FANDOM IS NOT FOR YOU GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY."
...because it seems to imply that A) creators can't be fans, even of their own narratives and B) you're not a "real" fan if you ship anything that has canon/creator support. I hate both these ideas equally, really.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-29 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-30 04:17 am (UTC)