A fictional post
May. 26th, 2007 08:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hazelkNot 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.
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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Regarding Buffy
Date: 2007-05-27 01:14 am (UTC)For me - Buffy as a character did not really resonate until the later seasons. And I always saw her as intelligent, more so than most of the people writing fanfic seem to. One of my problems with some of the fanfic I'd read and I've admittedly not read that much of it - was a sense that the writers were making Buffy the damsel, the one who needed to be saved and protected and coached by the *male* heroes, and she was a mother figure who should get married, have a baby and wander off happily ever after.
I prefered Whedon's ending. Where she is a *street smart* fighter, who is feminine, but also able to kick ass. Someone struggling with her powers and struggling to make the right choices. Her choices were often better informed than her male counterparts, and unlike Giles and the patriarchial Watcher Counsel - Buffy had the ability to think outside the box.
My Dad used to tell me there are folks with street smarts and book smarts, and some with both. If he had to choose between street and book, he'd pick street. The problem with book smarts is people don't outside the box. It's like learning to knit or cook - oh, I can't do that - because the *book* said this is the way it has to be done. But what if you forgot the parsely for a dish? If you stick to the book - do you not eat? Or do you figure out another way? The ability to be flexible, to be resourceful, to not be dependent on a book or pre-set pattern - is street smarts.
What is interesting about the show is how Whedon underlined that reliance on just books or just street smarts gets one in trouble. And how intelligence is not something you can determine via a test or casual obeservation or by how someone spoke. People were constantly underestimating Buffy's intelligence, including Willow, yet Buffy came up with solutions that blew Willow away and saved the world. Whedon seemed to be saying people aren't all one thing or another...they aren't easily pigeon-holed. The blond ex-cheerleader with the valley girl speak - may actually be a hero with superstrength and highly resourceful. The geek may turn out to be a suave architect. It all depends on your perspective.