oh, that definitely! but this is where fic ties into social context rather than textual one. and, well - there're quick wit, play of ideas, literary excellence and so on to find in fics, if you know where to look and how to play, but at the ground it's kink-fulfilling, open playground for everybody, and hooray for that :)
Your post is amazing! Is it OK to make a link to it in a separate post?
Yes, of course fandom is a social tool - I do not contend that it is not - or if I do, it is more to separate the false assumptions from sound arguments.
But so are Midrashim - a way to deal with an unthinkable notion that the G-d we believe in allowed _that_ to happen. It is a way of self-assertion, of recognising the problem, of dealing with it in a way that diminishes the amount of pain in the world (rather than not recognising or insisting it is as it should be).
But the social context did not preclude Midrashim becoming an inspiration and a model for literature: for stories of I.L.Perets, M.M Seforim, G. Meyrink and M.Chabon. So I have a hope for fanfic still :) Of course, same as happens with SF/F, when it is good enough, universal enough, it is no longer SF/F (there is a nice article about the difference: http://zhurnal.lib.ru/c/chigirinskaja_o_a/chronotop.shtml).
some fics do become original novels with serial numbers filed off (though this rarely works well), and, what's interesting enough, many prominent ficwriters migrate to fantasy (mostly ya fantasy): ladyjaida did (pretty fascinating) havemercy, cassandra claire writes her city of bones series, mistful writes demon's lexicon, astolat started writing o'brian au fic and ended up with temeraire series, and so on. and they bring good parts of fanfiction - freedom of playing, awareness of sexuality and different orientation, skills of working with cliches in new ways - with them and turn them into something new.
so on one level fanfiction culture is something of a storytelling tradition where social aspect is more important - i chatfic stories with friends for the pleasure of shared re-telling, not any writing goals - and on the other, for people who get talent for that, it goes a bit further and become a very flexible writing workshop, and some people bring fascinating social agenda in, and so on, and so on, anything for everybody.
(and this is why when outsider dismiss the whole culture as low quality, useless and harmful to original excercise i get peeved, but don't we all :D)
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blades_of_grass) wrote2010-08-10 10:02 am
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Yes, of course fandom is a social tool - I do not contend that it is not - or if I do, it is more to separate the false assumptions from sound arguments.
But so are Midrashim - a way to deal with an unthinkable notion that the G-d we believe in allowed _that_ to happen. It is a way of self-assertion, of recognising the problem, of dealing with it in a way that diminishes the amount of pain in the world (rather than not recognising or insisting it is as it should be).
But the social context did not preclude Midrashim becoming an inspiration and a model for literature: for stories of I.L.Perets, M.M Seforim, G. Meyrink and M.Chabon. So I have a hope for fanfic still :) Of course, same as happens with SF/F, when it is good enough, universal enough, it is no longer SF/F (there is a nice article about the difference: http://zhurnal.lib.ru/c/chigirinskaja_o_a/chronotop.shtml).
no subject
some fics do become original novels with serial numbers filed off (though this rarely works well), and, what's interesting enough, many prominent ficwriters migrate to fantasy (mostly ya fantasy):
so on one level fanfiction culture is something of a storytelling tradition where social aspect is more important - i chatfic stories with friends for the pleasure of shared re-telling, not any writing goals - and on the other, for people who get talent for that, it goes a bit further and become a very flexible writing workshop, and some people bring fascinating social agenda in, and so on, and so on, anything for everybody.
(and this is why when outsider dismiss the whole culture as low quality, useless and harmful to original excercise i get peeved, but don't we all :D)