A fictional post

[hazelk]

Not being much of a fic person I haven’t really weighed in on the whole FanLib thing but this response by the CEO to criticism hosted in Henry Jenkins’s blog was interesting. It does sound as if rather than hoping to become the fanfic equivalent of YouTube what FanLib are attempting to create is more the fictive counterpart to American Idol with the web site playing the role of the early ‘freak show’ rounds of the contest. Given the current popularity of all manner of talent shows it may well end up being successful on its own terms but be no more or less likely than the TV versions to discover writers/stories with real star quality.

The whole thing does seem to presuppose that fanfic writers have essentially the same motivations as Idol contestants, individual celebrity, fame and fortune. Not that there’s anything wrong with that but writers on LJ don’t give the impression of being there primarily for the competition.

We are pattern-finding and story-telling animals. It’s what we do. We take the real world and turn it into narratives and symbols so our brains can manipulate them more easily.
http://subterraneanpress.com/index.php/magazine/summer-2007/column-bears-examining-4-by-elizabeth-bear/

I don’t write stories in my head to any great extent, I find patterns and chop them into ever finer messes but for those to whom stories come naturally it makes sense that fanfic would be both a way to ‘talk’ about them or function as a form of narrative jamming, taking a storyline for a walk as it were.

Speaking of fanfic but more specifically (and based on a sample size of two) does anyone get the impression that fic!Buffy is a more womanly woman than she was on the show? Emotionally intelligent but otherwise not that bright? Joss’s Buffy can have a hard, quite abstract edge to her thinking. Her first line in the first comic has her philosophising about the world not individual inhabitants of it and she’s as capable as Giles or Wesley of understanding the big picture, that there may only be bad choices that Willow may still be evil. The main difference between her and the Watchers is where she draws the line between a necessary evil and a convenient one.

Comments

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

more womanly woman = emotionally intelligent but otherwise not that bright ??? *raises eyebrow*

I do think that TV!Buffy is a lot more intelligent than she's often given credit for... she's not as academically gifted as Willow or Giles, but few people are. She's extremely quick-thinking, though - it's a survival trait, when you're fighting for your life and need to spot some feature of your environment that can make the difference. She's also good at seeing the big picture as you say.

On the other hand, I think she underestimates her own intelligence sometimes, and acts like a ditzy blonde as a defence mechanism, or because she doesn't want to think hard about something.

The classic Buffy scene for me would involve her comic mispronunciation of some important word, her getting all pouty about something irrelevent - and then her demonstrating a clear grasp of the strategic situation and coming up with an extremely well-thought out plan that all her friends immediately realise is the best possible solution.

I think a lot of people unfamiliar with the show probably think of it as "a dumb blonde cheerleader who kills vampires"; I'd be surprised if many fans have that misconception. But I suppose Buffy's intelligence isn't as obvious as her other character traits - as compared to Willow where it's probably the most important - so in a fic where she's not the primary character, it's easy to ignore.

[owenthurman.livejournal.com]

her comic mispronunciation of some important word

Of course the mispronunciation will more likely than not reveal extreme verbal fluency. But only if you are paying close attention.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

True. And if you think about it her other related trait - digressions to ask what a particular word means ("What's a stevedore?") have similar significance. Yes, it shows that her vocabulary doesn't include that particular word - but it also shows that she has the intellectual curiosity to want to expand her vocabulary.

[owenthurman.livejournal.com]

I love it that I made an aside (further above) about Buffy as portrayed by Kristy Swanson and you responded to my comment here with Buffy as portrayed by Eliza Dushku.

My favorite, of course, is our Smidge.

And I agree.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I should have put scare quotes around “womanly woman,” I meant it in the sense Dorothy Sayers uses it in Gaudy Night.

A “womanly woman” is one who embodies the traits deemed appropriate to her sex by teh patriarchy, which analytical intelligence/hardheadedness are not. The fics I was thinking of are both S/B but not simple romances, they’re ‘good’ fics with themes and subtext and interesting things to say. Buffy is a main POV character in both and although her characterisation in the two differs in many respects in both she is written in a way that readers clearly find sympathetic. It’s an interesting corollary to the idea that much of the criticism of her portrayal in the latter seasons is in response to behaviour (appearing cold and closed off) that in a male hero would be seen as at worst neutral.

On the other hand, I think she underestimates her own intelligence sometimes.
Yes, she certainly doesn't like to think of herself as intellectually gifted, so much of "intelligence" is about confidence.