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]
no subject
Also, the big, big epics that you write in your head? Completely normal. Honest. Apparently, we all do it, even if we don't realise it. I have this one that's a riff on teenage horror movies and basically took a pick-axe to all of the Buffy characters, and no, I haven't written it, but the gory parts are imprinted on the inside of my eyelids FOREVER. It's not like it was a Mary Sue or anything - except that, yeah, it totally was - but, hey, at least she did something other than sexin' teh hawtties!
Also, everything happens in London. Everything. Every story. Except the ones that can happen in Edinburgh. The end.
no subject
Well...no, I can vouch that that isn't true. As is obvious from this post, quite a lot of people do, but that still doesn't mean everyone. Saying "I do this, too" is a great way to make TFV feel less crazy, but there's no need for sweeping generalisations.
no subject
Tell! Tell! I told the whole world about my time-traveling scientist and his legally semi-enslaved assassin, and it actually proved to be a very healing experience. So, really, it would be for your own good.
(Okay, no. It would totally be to satisfy my curiosity, but it sounds much better if I pretend I'm being altrustic, don't you think?)
I have this one that's a riff on teenage horror movies and basically took a pick-axe to all of the Buffy characters, and no, I haven't written it, but the gory parts are imprinted on the inside of my eyelids FOREVER.
Wow. I had never even considered this use for Mary Sues, but now I totally am. Mary Sue Rampage! Mary Sue Psycho Killer! Mary Sue Caged Death Match! (Except that last one sounds like it'd be Mary-Sue-on-Mary-Sue violence: "In this corner, with the violet eyes, flowing indigo locks, and shaply wand made of unicorn hair and zebrawood, we have Ladye Rayvnnwing Potter-Snape. Annnnd in this corner, with the sparkling wings, half-elven ancestry, and awesome powers beyond mortal comprehension, we have the returning champion, Ginger Kirk! Mary Sues, get ready to RUMMMMMMMBLE!")
Also, everything happens in London. Everything. Every story. Except the ones that can happen in Edinburgh. The end.
But you're in the right general locale for that, right? (Yes, I checked your userinfo.) When I was a teenager, I lived in the extremely uncompelling environs of Albuquerque, NM, and I used to sometimes set my mental epics in London. Based entirely on one week spent there, plus Wodehouse and assorted early 20th century children's literature.
It was a sad time of geographical delusion in my life.
Of course, now I live in Los Angeles, and my imaginary fandoms are mostly set in space or the mid- to long-range future (or both), so I'm not sure things have improved. (Although, hey - if it's in a city on earth in the future, that city is generally Los Angeles. So maybe I have improved after all. Go me!)
no subject
Hee! Well, you asked for it. It all started with this v. old Star Trek book I read, that had an interesting idea but sort of ignored it in favour of a completely different story. So, I took the idea and made a sort of, I dunno, cross between Prison Break and Porridge deal out of it. (The horror!) Basically, in a world/country/whatever that can't deal with the power that its heads of state wield, they take official government hostages and lock them all up together in a top-secret secure environment. It's a nice enough place, but the only way you can leave it is if your dad (or mum or aunt or whoever) gives up power, or they make a hostile move - in which case, you end up dead. So, it's like peace at the point of a gun. Anyway, I had this whole cast of characters worked out, and it went through several incarnations (including an unfortunate stint as a sit-com) before finally settling down as a sort future dystopia that borrowed very heavily indeed from Cyteen and the Mars trilogy. It eventually ended up going a sort of X-Files route, with shadowy govt agents trying to control secret cabals within the hostages, and everyone guarding the others. There were attempts to kill the others, and attempts to escape so that war could be declared, and then sometimes people would die if war was declared. Of course, our main cast of characters were all roughly the same age, and good looking, and all that.
Also, there were tunnels. With slicing things. For no apparent reason. Frequently, people would be in mortal danger. There was also issues about the choice of dessert in the caffeteria, and some of the guys were really slimy and why were they locked in a sealed habitat with small children anyway, and so on.
Aren't you glad it died a quick death??
(Now that I've described it, it sounds suspiciously like LOST - but in space. Oh God! It's worse than I thought!!!)
Wow. I had never even considered this use for Mary Sues, but now I totally am. Mary Sue Rampage!
Seriously. Way cheaper than therapy. Plus, there's more gore.
But you're in the right general locale for that, right? (Yes, I checked your userinfo.)
But that just reveals that I have a sad, sad lack of imagination! Woe. *world's tiniest tear*
Of course, now I live in Los Angeles, and my imaginary fandoms are mostly set in space or the mid- to long-range future (or both), so I'm not sure things have improved.
So tell - do you write Angel!fic? And, if so, how does actualy living in the city inform your approach to it? *writing hat on*