Keep Hoping Machine Running (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thefourthvine) wrote2006-10-22 06:47 pm
thefourthvine) wrote2006-10-22 06:47 pm
Entry tags:
Poll: Consensus, Part One
So. I miss talking to and hearing from y'all. But I'm suffering from a tiny problem, namely absence of any ability to finish anything. Someday I hope to be able to write actual useful sentences that connect to other sentences again, but today is not that day, so I'm going to do a themed poll series instead of meta or a themed recs post. (There are only three parts to this themed poll set, but I realize that, from me, three posts is totally massive spamming. My apologies in advance.)
The poll's theme is: consensus.
In part one, below, I'm going to try to establish my relative fannish sanity by consensus. To do so, I need to take you on a brief tour of my brain, focusing on two particular fannish things it does that I'm starting to suspect are - well, weird. (And keep in mine I'm judging myself compared to other fans; we'd already be considered insane by many of Them Folks Out There.)
We will now depart on our trip through TFV's brain. Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.
Imaginary Fandoms. I have, um, imaginary fandoms. I don't mean original fiction that I tell myself - I mean original fandoms, where I come up with, for example, a long and detailed original story, and then entertain myself with considering - and sometimes, um, even writing - various types of fan fiction or kerfluffles or meta that might result from given installments of the story. Sometimes I do, like, a TV series, and cast it with imaginary actors and plan out both FPF and RPF. In my most recent imaginary fandom, I've even begun mentally vidding it.
These imaginary fandoms hit basically all my buttons, of course. I'm not actually going to describe this in any kind of detail, because, um, oh my god so embarrassing that I kind of want to die just from typing it out, but the current one involves time traveling teams (one "temporal scientist" and one assassin-ish type) from the future. The main team, at this point (in my head, we have arrived roughly at book or season three), has uncovered evidence that they are working for - and trapped by, and no, I'm not even going to elaborate on the whole legal enslavement aspect, because I do not want to die of embarrassment - an organization of extremely questionable ethics and purpose, which opposes an organization that also has extremely questionable ethics and purpose. Oh, and the timestream, which they're supposed to protect, is slowly dissolving.
I have assorted mental fan fiction for this story, all carefully tagged to various chapters or episodes. I have, as I said, mental vids. I entertained myself on one long, hideous drive to Pasadena imagining the meta resulting from the end of book or season one.
I'm pretty sure that all this is the very definition of sad and pathetic. But, hey, this is fandom - maybe we all do this. Do you?
Epics That Must Not Be Read. (Term borrowed from the only other person I know for sure has written one of these. She will not be named here - unless she just wants to be - out of mercy for her.) Another thing I do is write these long, involved pieces of FF that are only for an audience of one, and that one person is me. They're always AUs of some kind, and they always start in canon and move sharply away from it, and they always entertain the hell out of me. But only me.
I've written two. The first is a BtVS story that currently stands at 80 pages of actual story, 30 more of notes and dialog, and 5 of outline, plus 10 pages of deleted scenes. It assumes that canon remains the same up to "Once More with Feeling." (Please note that "Once More with Feeling" is the only episode of BtVS season six that I've seen - and I haven't seen any of five or four, either. No, wait - I think I've seen one episode in season four. My point is, the first clue I had to the ETMNBR status of this beast was that I was writing in canon I hadn't seen.) At that point, a single line changes, and this massively alters everything from then on. In terms of timeline, I've written up to where season nine would have been if there had been one, and I know how things will resolve in season ten.
There are only two people in the world who would be interested in this story; one is me, and the other is Best Beloved. We've both read it. I know it's an ETMNBR, so I'm not worried about finishing it. But I re-read it fairly regularly, and I still write on it from time to time, because it entertains me so damned much.
The other one is much more embarrassing because I didn't realize it was an ETMNBR until after I sent it to be beta-read. It's also rather long (and needs to be much, much longer), an AU that assumes canon up to a certain point and then sharply diverges, and entertaining only to me. (My poor, poor betas - some of them actually read the fucker, and provided really helpful, thoughtful, useful comments - in short, they helped me make a story that was interesting only to me even more interesting. To me. At the cost of a lot of their time and effort. I would send them flowers and chocolate except that I'm embarrassed to speak to them.)
Now for consensus. Feel free to judge harshly.
[Poll #851020]
The poll's theme is: consensus.
In part one, below, I'm going to try to establish my relative fannish sanity by consensus. To do so, I need to take you on a brief tour of my brain, focusing on two particular fannish things it does that I'm starting to suspect are - well, weird. (And keep in mine I'm judging myself compared to other fans; we'd already be considered insane by many of Them Folks Out There.)
We will now depart on our trip through TFV's brain. Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.
Imaginary Fandoms. I have, um, imaginary fandoms. I don't mean original fiction that I tell myself - I mean original fandoms, where I come up with, for example, a long and detailed original story, and then entertain myself with considering - and sometimes, um, even writing - various types of fan fiction or kerfluffles or meta that might result from given installments of the story. Sometimes I do, like, a TV series, and cast it with imaginary actors and plan out both FPF and RPF. In my most recent imaginary fandom, I've even begun mentally vidding it.
These imaginary fandoms hit basically all my buttons, of course. I'm not actually going to describe this in any kind of detail, because, um, oh my god so embarrassing that I kind of want to die just from typing it out, but the current one involves time traveling teams (one "temporal scientist" and one assassin-ish type) from the future. The main team, at this point (in my head, we have arrived roughly at book or season three), has uncovered evidence that they are working for - and trapped by, and no, I'm not even going to elaborate on the whole legal enslavement aspect, because I do not want to die of embarrassment - an organization of extremely questionable ethics and purpose, which opposes an organization that also has extremely questionable ethics and purpose. Oh, and the timestream, which they're supposed to protect, is slowly dissolving.
I have assorted mental fan fiction for this story, all carefully tagged to various chapters or episodes. I have, as I said, mental vids. I entertained myself on one long, hideous drive to Pasadena imagining the meta resulting from the end of book or season one.
I'm pretty sure that all this is the very definition of sad and pathetic. But, hey, this is fandom - maybe we all do this. Do you?
Epics That Must Not Be Read. (Term borrowed from the only other person I know for sure has written one of these. She will not be named here - unless she just wants to be - out of mercy for her.) Another thing I do is write these long, involved pieces of FF that are only for an audience of one, and that one person is me. They're always AUs of some kind, and they always start in canon and move sharply away from it, and they always entertain the hell out of me. But only me.
I've written two. The first is a BtVS story that currently stands at 80 pages of actual story, 30 more of notes and dialog, and 5 of outline, plus 10 pages of deleted scenes. It assumes that canon remains the same up to "Once More with Feeling." (Please note that "Once More with Feeling" is the only episode of BtVS season six that I've seen - and I haven't seen any of five or four, either. No, wait - I think I've seen one episode in season four. My point is, the first clue I had to the ETMNBR status of this beast was that I was writing in canon I hadn't seen.) At that point, a single line changes, and this massively alters everything from then on. In terms of timeline, I've written up to where season nine would have been if there had been one, and I know how things will resolve in season ten.
There are only two people in the world who would be interested in this story; one is me, and the other is Best Beloved. We've both read it. I know it's an ETMNBR, so I'm not worried about finishing it. But I re-read it fairly regularly, and I still write on it from time to time, because it entertains me so damned much.
The other one is much more embarrassing because I didn't realize it was an ETMNBR until after I sent it to be beta-read. It's also rather long (and needs to be much, much longer), an AU that assumes canon up to a certain point and then sharply diverges, and entertaining only to me. (My poor, poor betas - some of them actually read the fucker, and provided really helpful, thoughtful, useful comments - in short, they helped me make a story that was interesting only to me even more interesting. To me. At the cost of a lot of their time and effort. I would send them flowers and chocolate except that I'm embarrassed to speak to them.)
Now for consensus. Feel free to judge harshly.
[Poll #851020]
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But then there are the pilots and screenplays I will never write, the ones that are so shamelessly self-indulgent and slashy (like the screenplay that's basically an adapted version of Stephen Fry's The Liar mashed in with Christopher Dunn's Kit Marlowe and features a lot of Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry running around the roofs of Cambridge and being spies and writing comedy and loving each other). And the fandom for that, in my head, would rival SGA, Smallville, and Supernatural put together. (Hey, a girl can dream, right?)
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When I came creeping back to read the comments, I was braced for horror. And instead, the first comment was you, saying, hey, that's not completely insane.
I have "imaginary fandoms" in the sense that I write television pilots and movie screenplays as a part of my everyday work required for classes, and then I fantasize about the series and the fandom and all the meta and kerfuffles and what sort of fic would be written, and also dream about winning an Emmy and my interview on the Daily Show and basically I'm a giant narcissitic nerd.
I don't think you have to consider them imaginary in this case. You're willing to show them to someone. If I imagined anyone - anyone at all actually reading or watching my imaginary fandoms, I would, basically, die. (Late at night, I sometimes worry that telepaths are reading my mind. I mean, I know they aren't, but - part of the origin of my great fear of telepathy (like, at least 25% of it) is that if anyone could see into my head, I would die.) Just - dead from shame, right there. And it's the imaginary fandoms that would kill me.
Because I know they're terrible. Whereas yours, obviously, are not. So yours are fandoms in waiting. Mine are just fandoms in my own mind. (But - it is so obvious to me, and always has been, that if you have a mental story, you also have to consider every possible AU and also sometimes make them all vampires and stuff. And now I have a name for those unattached chunks of the main story: fan fiction.)
features a lot of Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry running around the roofs of Cambridge and being spies and writing comedy and loving each other
I see nothing wrong with this whatsoever. *nods firmly*
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As for epics I can't show anybody else...not necessarily. I have stories that I WANT to write, but they would, purely and singularly, be entertaining to me, and so I don't...bother? If that makes any sense. I just you know, let them entertain me in my head.
...Okay, I sound like a schizo.
Oh, yeah, do me a favor. Tell NotPoetry to go write my script. *grins*
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You guys should totally write these. They'd come with convenient places for fan fiction built right in.
I have stories that I WANT to write, but they would, purely and singularly, be entertaining to me, and so I don't...bother? If that makes any sense. I just you know, let them entertain me in my head.
It does make sense, though the comments on this post are starting to make me wonder if anything can be truly said to be entertaining to just one person. On the other hand, I'm very damn sure my ETMNBR are entertaining only to me, so I kind of want to order all of fandom to do as I say and not as I do and just show me the audience-of-one stories, damn it!
*waves magic wand*
*checks to see if it has been made so*
*notices no sudden influx of idiosyncratic and highly personal stories*
*makes tragic noises*
Okay, I sound like a schizo.
Hah. So totally not. As it turns out, this is entirely normal fangirl behavior.
Oh, yeah, do me a favor.
*eyes you*
Hmmmm. Ooooookay. But "write Pru's script" had better not be code for "remove my liver" or anything.
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(OMG don't blame me she made me say it!)
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I...would not being adverse to this at all. If I could wave my "cause it to occur!" wand, then...it would have already occured.