on negativity in fandom
Nov. 17th, 2019 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotI was writing this whole long rambling post about responsibility, and apologizing for and trying to minimize accidental harm, but then it changed tangents and I think what I most want to say is this:
In fandom, please be careful about how negative you are, and how you are negative.
This relates to anything from offering unsolicited crit on a fic (or heck, solicited crit) to hating on a part of canon, or to being an anti, or to discussing your dislike of a popular fic trope.
I'm not saying this for reasons of courtesy and manners, though I think that counts for something. But it's really for a much more selfish reason: Negativity can make people disengage, and that's overall detrimental to fandom. Which I selfishly care about, as a fan.
Spoilers: fandom is a really fucking emotional thing for most people. Our interests and obsessions are a pretty core part of our identities, and we wouldn't be devoting time and energy to them if we weren't mentally and emotionally engaged. Hearing that someone hates something you love can hurt, even when there is no hurt intended. That's even before we get into the question of fanfic and fanart and vids and other fan creations, and how personal one's art is to most artists. Especially for amateur artists, who aren't getting paid and so the only impetus to share our creations is for emotional validation.
There have been more than a few fic writers who have quit writing because of crit -- because getting crit is really hard even for many professional writers, and people writing for fun may not have the emotional energy to deal with it, or just don't want to, and so they stop, or stop sharing their work publicly. But it's not just direct crit that can do this. If you're writing a trope you love, or a pairing you love, and then you see people talking about how much they dislike that trope or how gross that pairing is, it can make you hesitate to keep writing, or at least hesitate to share your work, knowing you might be inviting crit. Or even just thinking that no one is going to want to read it. (Then, some of us are the opposite and such things inspire us to keep going out of pure spite; but even for me that's something I have to work myself into and it takes its own emotional toll.)
And this hurts, not just the writer, but the fandom as a whole, because someone quitting writing means less fic in the fandom for the rest of us. And even if it's not fic that you like personally, that you'd be happy not to see any more of -- someone else surely would like it, and want more, and do you want to spoil their fun, too?
Likewise, talking about disliking canon can stop discussion, because it can be hard to contradict someone -- especially someone with whom you share a fandom, so there can be that sense of comradery, being in the same community. So if you see a fan friend talking about how X canon thing sucks, rather than argue back that you love that thing, it can be easier to not rock the boat, to not say anything -- but then not feeling comfortable to talk about what you love in a fandom can drain your interest in it, and with it the fandom; and then you drift away, and the fandom shrinks.
To be clear, I'm not saying don't be negative. For one thing, sometimes it's important to do so. Calling out things like racism or toxic behavior can be seen as negative but can also be really crucial for the overall health and safety of a community and the members in it. Pointing out that a fic isn't sufficiently tagged can be a type of criticism (and can hurt a writer) but may help many other fans who could be impacted.
For two, complaining about what we dislike as well as what we like is a big part of fanning for a lot of us -- for me definitely; I enjoy a good hard critical analysis, and I'll be honest, sometimes I take guiltily gleeful pleasure in shredding something I didn't like. And sometimes, too, it feels great to talk about and find out I'm not alone in hating X thing. But I try -- have been trying harder -- to limit how I do it. When I criticize canon, I try to tag/mark it for negativity and squee-harshing, so people who don't want to see it can avoid it. When I criticize fanworks (either a specific fic I don't like, or a trope/ship/etc) I try to ensure it's not personal, and/or to keep it in more private locked channels that won't get back to the writer(s), because that's really all about me and what I like; it's not another fan's fault that I have my preferences, and the last thing I want to do is get in the way of the fun of someone else who is enjoying the fandom as much as I am, if in a different way.
I'm far from great at this -- I've hurt friends on more than one occasion without meaning to because I got too into a fannish debate and didn't realize the feelings I was provoking. I have no doubt that I've discouraged other fans from fanning on and writing things they enjoy, and I'm sorry for that. But I'm trying, and will keep trying -- I've been trying harder especially lately because my current fandom is quite small; just about all of us non-lurkers in it have interacted with each other to some extent, so it makes any interactions more personal than they would be in a larger fandom in which many people don't know each other. I'm not perfect but I'm doing my best. And hopefully my fandoms will be a more encouraging place for it.
tl;dr: make squee, not war?
ETA: this post's original subject was "not-so-vague vague-posting" because I was originally inspired to write it by a mess in my current fandom. My original intent morphed in the writing of it, though, to be more about my own changing feelings about how I interact with the fan communities I'm in, for better or for worse, so I've adjusted the subject to match.
In fandom, please be careful about how negative you are, and how you are negative.
This relates to anything from offering unsolicited crit on a fic (or heck, solicited crit) to hating on a part of canon, or to being an anti, or to discussing your dislike of a popular fic trope.
I'm not saying this for reasons of courtesy and manners, though I think that counts for something. But it's really for a much more selfish reason: Negativity can make people disengage, and that's overall detrimental to fandom. Which I selfishly care about, as a fan.
Spoilers: fandom is a really fucking emotional thing for most people. Our interests and obsessions are a pretty core part of our identities, and we wouldn't be devoting time and energy to them if we weren't mentally and emotionally engaged. Hearing that someone hates something you love can hurt, even when there is no hurt intended. That's even before we get into the question of fanfic and fanart and vids and other fan creations, and how personal one's art is to most artists. Especially for amateur artists, who aren't getting paid and so the only impetus to share our creations is for emotional validation.
There have been more than a few fic writers who have quit writing because of crit -- because getting crit is really hard even for many professional writers, and people writing for fun may not have the emotional energy to deal with it, or just don't want to, and so they stop, or stop sharing their work publicly. But it's not just direct crit that can do this. If you're writing a trope you love, or a pairing you love, and then you see people talking about how much they dislike that trope or how gross that pairing is, it can make you hesitate to keep writing, or at least hesitate to share your work, knowing you might be inviting crit. Or even just thinking that no one is going to want to read it. (Then, some of us are the opposite and such things inspire us to keep going out of pure spite; but even for me that's something I have to work myself into and it takes its own emotional toll.)
And this hurts, not just the writer, but the fandom as a whole, because someone quitting writing means less fic in the fandom for the rest of us. And even if it's not fic that you like personally, that you'd be happy not to see any more of -- someone else surely would like it, and want more, and do you want to spoil their fun, too?
Likewise, talking about disliking canon can stop discussion, because it can be hard to contradict someone -- especially someone with whom you share a fandom, so there can be that sense of comradery, being in the same community. So if you see a fan friend talking about how X canon thing sucks, rather than argue back that you love that thing, it can be easier to not rock the boat, to not say anything -- but then not feeling comfortable to talk about what you love in a fandom can drain your interest in it, and with it the fandom; and then you drift away, and the fandom shrinks.
To be clear, I'm not saying don't be negative. For one thing, sometimes it's important to do so. Calling out things like racism or toxic behavior can be seen as negative but can also be really crucial for the overall health and safety of a community and the members in it. Pointing out that a fic isn't sufficiently tagged can be a type of criticism (and can hurt a writer) but may help many other fans who could be impacted.
For two, complaining about what we dislike as well as what we like is a big part of fanning for a lot of us -- for me definitely; I enjoy a good hard critical analysis, and I'll be honest, sometimes I take guiltily gleeful pleasure in shredding something I didn't like. And sometimes, too, it feels great to talk about and find out I'm not alone in hating X thing. But I try -- have been trying harder -- to limit how I do it. When I criticize canon, I try to tag/mark it for negativity and squee-harshing, so people who don't want to see it can avoid it. When I criticize fanworks (either a specific fic I don't like, or a trope/ship/etc) I try to ensure it's not personal, and/or to keep it in more private locked channels that won't get back to the writer(s), because that's really all about me and what I like; it's not another fan's fault that I have my preferences, and the last thing I want to do is get in the way of the fun of someone else who is enjoying the fandom as much as I am, if in a different way.
I'm far from great at this -- I've hurt friends on more than one occasion without meaning to because I got too into a fannish debate and didn't realize the feelings I was provoking. I have no doubt that I've discouraged other fans from fanning on and writing things they enjoy, and I'm sorry for that. But I'm trying, and will keep trying -- I've been trying harder especially lately because my current fandom is quite small; just about all of us non-lurkers in it have interacted with each other to some extent, so it makes any interactions more personal than they would be in a larger fandom in which many people don't know each other. I'm not perfect but I'm doing my best. And hopefully my fandoms will be a more encouraging place for it.
tl;dr: make squee, not war?
ETA: this post's original subject was "not-so-vague vague-posting" because I was originally inspired to write it by a mess in my current fandom. My original intent morphed in the writing of it, though, to be more about my own changing feelings about how I interact with the fan communities I'm in, for better or for worse, so I've adjusted the subject to match.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-18 01:35 am (UTC)Oh boy yes to this.
I get this a lot with MCU movie canon, especially in adjacent places where there's like this blanket permission to diss stuff with the assumption that everyone must feel the same way and it really screws me up for days. And the thing is it makes me have to put in extra effort to stay in fandom. I'm acutely conscious of this effort I'm having to make because it's atypical of me. It's not like I'm hovering on the edge of "in" or "out" decision, it's more like I have to take a deep breath and bring to mind all the things I love about canon to remember why I'm here. Because for me, once I don't like canon, I move fandoms. I don't stay where I don't like the source material, and so it's so important for me to feel good about it.
I mean, needless to say, chasing creators out of fandom with mean comments is beyond the pale. But I think that happens relatively rarely compared to how often I see people just dismiss certain things as bad because they feel that way, and not realize this isn't a commonly held viewpoint. IMHO anyway.
And also what you said about comradely is so true. The more connected I feel to the people in the fandom the more I creative I feel. The cycle of reader-writer-artist-beta giving each other things is perpetuated on good will after all.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-18 10:53 am (UTC)I've been on both sides of this -- there are some shows (e.g. Smallville) that I came to hate the canon, but I still loved the fandom and the characters and the fic, and basically treating the canon as an OOC AU was the only way I kept loving them. But then there are other shows that I love the canon, and even if it's flawed I don't want to dwell on that; it will make me like it less.
And then there are mixed cases like Guardian that I absolutely love parts of the canon and hate other parts, and I can simultaneously be upset with people who dismiss the show as not worth watching, but at the same time when I call it a trash show it's not just to dismiss it, but a defense mechanism, because the only way I can really enjoy it is to remind myself not to take it too seriously, or it will break my heart. But increasingly I'm trying to keep those thoughts more to myself/to people who agree with me, and not interfere with others' enjoyment.
And yes, fandom is a community thing, very much so. We play off each other so much that it's easy for us to encourage or discourage our fellow fans, whether or not we mean to...
no subject
Date: 2019-11-18 02:06 pm (UTC)It wasn't????
Fucking Smallville. We could've had it allllllllllll /adele
no subject
Date: 2019-11-19 08:44 am (UTC)♥ ♥ ♥ FWIW, I did appreciate the explanation of what you and Naye et al mean by "trash" in the earlier comment threads. I mean, I've been trying to work much harder on good-faith readings of other people's actions in fandom, too, and it isn't even difficult in this case to understand that it is absolutely a squee thing for you guys; it's not meant to be insulting! And that kind of self-deprecating thing is pretty common on Tumblr, so I've kinda gotten used to it, even if it's never going to be my thing. It's just speaking a different fandom language, that's all.
And yes, in answer to something you said in one of these conversations awhile back that I never came back and answered (although I intended to): Yes, I think Iron Fist/Defenders is exactly one of those affectionate-trash kind of shows, for similar reasons to why Guardian is. XDDD It's sort of like a big sweet bumbling golden retriever of a show that you feel so impossibly affectionate about that you can forgive it for pooping on the rug occasionally. XD
I think the reason why I will never quite be able to use it for a canon as a whole (as opposed to a single character, which is a bit easier for me) is that I simply can't wrap my head around calling my own work trash, which is the inevitable corollary of it for me: if the canon is trashy, the fic is trashy too -- for me there's no way around that (I think a very fundamental element of the way I relate to fandom and fic is that fic is always a step down from canon; it might be much more fannishly satisfying because it's written to supply our fannish ids, but canon comes first and fic is always derivative of that). But you know, again, I know this is at least partly just how I relate to fic/fandom, and maybe it's a also consequence of me taking my own work too seriously and I'd be happier if I'd just lighten up and accept that I'm mostly writing iddy trash and it's ... not a bad thing. XD
Anyway, one reason why I never want these discussions/debates to stop happening is because they do expose me to new ideas, and make me see my old ideas in a new light, and I think the "trash" discussion was definitely one of those; it made me see where you all are coming from and chill out about it a bit myself. :D
no subject
Date: 2019-11-20 01:07 am (UTC)Though, for what it's worth, I tend not to call my own fic trash (or think of other people's fic that way) -- some of this is just that for me "trash" is kind of like "cheesy"...part of what makes a canon trashy for me is when I think a lot of it is just bad, and I'm focusing on the good parts; something that is just straight id all the time is not trashy in the same way...though that's maybe just how I'm thinking of specific examples. Hmm.
I think a very fundamental element of the way I relate to fandom and fic is that fic is always a step down from canon; it might be much more fannishly satisfying because it's written to supply our fannish ids, but canon comes first and fic is always derivative of that
This is fascinating to me because it's so fundamentally different from how I see things. I don't think something being derivative makes it lesser, or that an original idea is innately superior simply for being the original. I think the Gintama anime is more entertaining than the manga it's adapted from and prefer watching to reading, even though the former wouldn't exist without the latter. I usually think fics based on prompts are more interesting and better reads than the prompts that inspired them; most of the time I don't care about reading the prompt at all, and just want the fic. And yeah, I've read fanfic that I think are better than the original canon, at least on some axis of "better" -- for me, anyway; but then I think my opinion counts as much as anyone's. I'd much rather read Clex fic than watch Smallville! :P
Though mostly, for me, I don't compare them directly. Canon gives me something; fanfic gives me something else. They're both essential parts of my fanning experience, and even if one only exists without the other, without that one, my experience would be fundamentally different and lesser (and I wouldn't enjoy the canon as much anyway).
no subject
Date: 2019-11-20 08:39 am (UTC)But I also agree with you that I don't tend to think of them in direct comparison to each other; like you said, they typically give me different things. There are things I'll read (or write) in fic but don't want in canon, and vice versa! And there are definitely times when fic gives me what I'm craving when fandom didn't - I guess my two main reasons for looking for fic are "more of the same" and "more of the thing canon didn't have enough of"! Hurt/comfort usually, heavy on the comfort, please and thank you.
.... oh, and re: the "trash" thing - I saw you say in a comment elsewhere that not using the trash phrasing publicly makes fandom a little less fun for you, and that makes me kind of sad, because - I want fandom to be fun for everyone! I hope it wasn't our discussions about it that contributed to that, and I'm sorry if it was. I mean, that's totally the kind of thing where I think the person who needs to learn to roll with it is me, not other people needing to change the way they do things. (Tumblr has gotten me used to various fandom things that I wouldn't have thought possible ... XD)
Anyway, I'm glad we can still discuss these things. <3
no subject
Date: 2019-11-21 03:42 am (UTC)I am a fan of canon. I can enjoy a fic, I can fall in love with it, etc. It could be the best thing that's ever been written. It could be emotionally/intellectually more satisfying then canon. But if I were to write fanfic based on the fic, it would in my head be a step removed from any fanfic I would write based on canon, if that makes sense. Like, fanon characterization (hi Draco in leatherpants!) is often enjoyable in and of itself but it doesn't actually have to impact canon characterization in my head.
So then, you can fix/rewrite canon as many times as you like, and some of those rewrites will be amazing but they won't really be lesser or greater than the source material, to me. Just different.
This is perhaps ramblier and less coherent than I wish but I'm too tired to make it more coherent.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-21 06:47 am (UTC)Hurt/comfort usually, heavy on the comfort, please and thank you.
Heeeeeeeeee (my ration of h to c is tilting SO much harder to the c now and I don't know why, whether it's because I'm getting older, or just, well, the world is so crap, we need more warmth and kindness...!)
And oh, no, the "trash" thing wasn't you! You were just one voice of many who were unhappy enough with it that it just isn't worth it for me. Words are words for a reason, and if many of the people I'm talking to are not hearing the same word as I do when I speak, it's not worth it for me to keep saying it. And I do have peeps who I share that fanning style with too (I admit that I wish I had a few more, because lovingly mocking is really one of my favorite ways to fan, but it's such a delicate balance for me, like, mocking without the love isn't fun for me either...)
I'm so glad to be discussing things like this too! I should do more random fandom meta even when not vaguely addressing wank, it's so much more fun than that :P
no subject
Date: 2019-11-21 03:36 am (UTC)I'm not saying any of this to attempt to argue that people shouldn't say whatever they want, garbage trash etc. I'm just explaining the way my brain processes it and how I'm going to feel walking away from reading something like that. Like I'm somehow not aware of the flaws in this thing that I adore.
I actually find well-grounded critique easier to swallow because it targets a specific thing (eg. someone explaining why the don't like a specific thing because of X reasons is either valid or not valid and that's it, I can put that away) whereas the 'trash' tag kind of feels like it applies to the entire thing?
no subject
Date: 2019-11-21 07:42 am (UTC)Hmm. Okay, part of the disconnect here is that I don't mean "trashy" to mean "wrong"? Anything but. For me, when I say "trash," I genuinely mean it as a compliment. It means something is fun for me in a lighthearted way that means I don't have to take it too seriously. It's not that it has "trashy parts" and "good parts"; it's that the whole thing, to me, is a delightful mess of things I think are amazing and things I think are dumb, in a cheese silly way intermixed with moments of pure id appeal. It's not trashy for the bad bits that I genuinely want changed; it's trashy for the bad bits that I think are hilarious and goofy and make the whole thing better, for me.
I'm not sure if this is going to make it better or worse for you, so...caveat on the rest of comment, please skip it if it will just be annoying to you? I'm going to explain why I think of Guardian as "trashy" and I am going to be mentioning things that could definitely be taken as flaws -- but I'll only be talking about Guardian, so you don't have to brace for anything else getting dissed.
For me, what makes Guardian "trash" is the endearingly bad special f/x and the teeming crowds of ten people and t-shirts in Dixing. It's because most of the monster-of-the-week storylines are cliches and don't fully make sense, and absolutely no one cares because that is SO not why we are watching this show -- and the show knows it, and instead of concentrating on shoring up those weaknesses instead gives us more of Shen Wei lovingly tucking Zhao Yunlan into bed, while wearing a wallet chain that is connected to nothing and is kind of a weird choice for his character and exists only because it is criminally hot and frames his ass beautifully.
It's trash because you can recognize most of the main villains by the silliness of their wigs/dye-jobs. It's trash because mid-battle when Shen Wei gets cut, Zhao Yunlan grabs him to demand why isn't it healing, and the bad guys just stop attacking to watch because they find WeiLan as crazily adorable as all of us do. It's trash because China demanded Morality and so there is an episode about how Video Gamers Will Kill People -- but to make up for it they gave us Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan defusing a bomb with a ridiculous amount of wires and who cares if it's cliche because Zhao Yunlan kneels before Shen Wei and basically looks like he's proposing, and he grins and Shen Wei curls his lip in a way that absolutely means "Please stop turning me on when I am HOLDING A BOMB."
That's why it's trash, to me. Because these things wouldn't happen in Prestige TV, wouldn't happen in a drama you were meant to take seriously; but I don't want to take Guardian too seriously, and I love it for being like this!
no subject
Date: 2019-11-21 10:04 am (UTC)Haha, I RELATE. XD I mean, honestly, I think it's easier for me to understand exactly what you mean right now because my main fandom (we all know the one) is one in which I have to actively ignore/write around/headcanon out a significant chunk of canon in order to get it to work, because it's either badly written, completely contracts something in another part of canon, is something I genuinely dislike, or it's just like ... I think I get what they're going for there, it's just that it literally DOES NOT come across on the screen, but I plan to write it as if it WAS actively on the screen if they'd had either a better budget or more coherent writers, or both. XDDD
And yet, the parts that I like are incredibly iddy and fun and infinitely rewatchable for me!
So I'm kinda writing the best-parts version that exists in my head and which consists of me end-running around the parts of canon that make my inner writer quietly scream into a pillow. And I sort of ... typically talk about it as if it is that version.
But I also do genuinely enjoy the affectionate mocking thing. Honestly I think that's why I have been so much more successful at getting people into this show than into, say, Agent Carter, which I love so much that I really can't handle criticism of it. It's difficult for me to talk about it with people who are not all the way out to the "squee" end because it's so intensely personal to me that I tend to nope out of conversations that tend to go in an even mildly critical direction. Whereas Iron Fist, and really everything in the general Defenders stable of shows, for me anyway, are just sort of fun to gently mock because they ARE kind of cheesy and ridiculous and not quite all they could be, but I'm also not sure if I'd love them in the same way or find them as easy to talk about if they fell into that "perfect canon, I cannot bear criticism" kind of category. I not only can bear criticism, I am sometimes the first person bringing it. XD But I also have written reams of fanfiction about them and just kind of want to cuddle them like a big silly puppy. Which I kinda get the feeling is how you relate to Guardian, too. (Which I honestly think I WOULD really like; I just haven't been in the right headspace lately for a new show like that!)
no subject
Date: 2019-11-21 02:29 pm (UTC)THIS exactly.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-02 01:07 pm (UTC)And for the shows I tend to consider trashy, I guess the, hmm, gap, between the show and the "real story" is wider? So some of the fun for me is mocking the show, in part for having "errors" in how true it is to the "real story"...and for me, talking about those things as errors just solidifies the "real story" in my mind, makes it something I enjoy all the more, for being better than what we actually see on screen.
--And I think that's partly why I do enjoy my "trash" shows so much, because I have that kind of...control, over them? With the Type A shows that I admire, they cleave (in my mind) closer to the "real story" -- so if they do something that breaks my heart, I have to just accept that that's "what really happened." While as with the trashy shows, if I don't like something -- NOPE, rejected, that's not how it really went; the show just made a mistake, and I can still write and read the "real" version in fic! :P
(...and I realize this all sounds vaguely delusional, but it kind of is how it works in my head? ^^;)
no subject
Date: 2019-12-03 11:04 am (UTC)I think the way I conceptualize it personally is that I'm constantly editing and revising pretty much anything in my head as I watch it. There's really nothing that doesn't require SOME mental editing to get from TV-reality to fictional-reality - for example, even really excellent canons usually have the thing where women wake up and step out of the shower fully made up, and unless you want to come up with some kind of strained bullshit handwave in fic for why women in this reality have tattooed makeup and/or they found a makeup kit in the ruins of the post-apocalyptic bunker, you just handwave it as "fiction reality" and write the version in which they wake up looking like most women do when they wake up.
I think I also don't have too much trouble mentally working around, for example, budget restrictions where it's obvious that some kind of ridiculous effect made out of tinfoil and a 9V battery and hope, in the world of the show, "really" looks much better than the f/x were able to convey. Or the 8 people and a shoelace who obviously WOULD have been an entire town if they'd been able to afford it. Even in shows with really great production effects, they tend not to show things like, say, the characters exercising and practicing for 6 hours a day to have the knife-throwing and acrobatics skills that they would need in order to do their thing at the climax.
I mean, I think even people who don't really think of themselves as doing any of this are doing at least SOME of this because on some level cinema-reality runs on its own set of absurd conventions just the same as theater-reality does.
But I think for me the characterization and actual events of the show are the hardest to work around without going completely AU -- like, I don't have much trouble handwaving some makeup/cardboard-set issues and laughing at them without it breaking my suspension of disbelief, but what I do have trouble actively tossing out the window are actual show events and/or stated canon. And I do like to closely analyze canon and try to pick out the "actual" version of events/characterization as closely as I can. And deviating from that tends to take me into AU territory. But there's also a certain level of "welp, of course that's what it's going to be, because XYZ real reason." So I guess I fall in the middle. But this does make sense to me!
no subject
Date: 2019-11-21 02:24 pm (UTC)With Guardian as an example: if I'm actually thinking about the t-shirts (never noticed) or wigs (never noticed) of the minor characters and villains on this show then I can't enjoy it. That's literally as simple as this is for me! When I see a show like this, I'm not expecting it to have an accurate representation of an actual real Dixing, with correct architecture and a whole lot of thought put into how it would actually function. Dixing on the screen for me is kind of like an impressionist painting, giving me just enough information for my mind to conjure up the real Dixing in my head. The descriptions of exactly what is wrong with each brushstroke make me analyse the painting style, which I do not want to do in the least when I'm fanning. I'm fine with it when I'm trying to think about the general industry of making tv shows, or how this show fits in the tv show landscape, but as I'm watching it for the characters/plot/whatever, it's out of scope for me to think about their wigs or whatnot. It just...really doesn't even occur to me. If I see something that's a bad special effect my mind goes to "substitute" it in my head with meaning.
Anyway, I think these things totally happen in Prestige TV, just in different ways. Ways that we're trained to ignore in the same way my mind automatically ignores the stupid little things in Guardian, by default. In "Prestige TV" you could have Natasha Romanova and Bucky Barnes say Russian sentences that would absolutely never be uttered by them if they actually got one (1) Russian person to consult on their blockbuster movies. It's just that we ignore this (we try very hard to ignore this) because it doesn't matter for the purposes of the movie whether they have trashy accents or not. We've been told that the Winter Soldier speaks Russian and that's good enough for us. Same with Wigs on the Guardian :)One could argue this is "just a superhero movie" but then where do we draw the line? I have a similar reaction to Oscar-worthy films. I usually have to ignore a couple of things that are clearly stand-ins for what the creator meant, even if they don't do a good job for me personally. So to me, an Oscar-worthy movie with wonderful special effects has a lot of flaws that I could try to find and focus on but I don't do that because I'm there to have a good time. Similarly, I don't notice the flaws of the Guardian because I'm just there to have a good time. As in I really don't SEE them until pointed out. Like Sholio says elsewhere, my mind substitutes the best version of the thing in their place and that IS canon for me afaik.
I don't know if I'm explaining it well, and I don't really...want to turn your post about something tangential into this! And I'm 100% fine with people calling things what they want to call them in their space! I just think it doesn't hurt to have awareness of how other people process fan stuff. It shouldn't stop you from enjoying it how you want, basically :)
no subject
Date: 2019-12-02 12:56 pm (UTC)If I'm following you, what you're talking about is basically suspension of disbelief? Or immersion -- basically, for you to enjoy a show/movie/etc, you have to be able to suspend your disbelief, to, while you're watching, basically believe it's "real" on some level -- that version you're conjuring in your head.
And yeah, that's often a difference between "prestige" fiction and other stuff, that they require less suspension of disbelief -- not none, because no movie or show can be 100% realistic, and they all rely on storytelling tropes and things. But shows with higher budgets, more careful writing, etc, have less of those moments that can potentially throw you out of the story.
But then, this is subjective -- when you're fanning, when you're really loving characters, you can "suspend" a lot for them; while if you're watching a supposedly high-quality show, but the characters just don't grab you, they can seem wooden and unbelievable no matter how carefully the sets and special effects are arranged.
And I'm guessing this is why you don't really like behind the scenes stuff/stuff with the actors, either, because it breaks your immersion?
And I guess, for me -- I sort of don't need my disbelief suspended, a lot of times? Or, hmm, I can slide in and out of it at will? For me, I can laugh at bad f/x, and I can admire thoughtful acting choices, and I can also be having that mental version in my head of the "real" story, which is why I write fic to -- I don't have much trouble doing all those things simultaneously. They don't interfere with each other, for me. --For the most part...there are occasionally weird film things that drive me nuts to the point that they'll spoil certain scenes for me, because I can't stop noticing them. But on the other side, sometimes they add in and make the experience more enjoyable for me. And a lot of times it's just neutral. So when I'm, say, mocking Guardian for poor f/x, that doesn't have any bearing on how much I enjoy the Guardian story as a story -- that idealized version of the story in my head stays untouched, while it means I enjoy the show side of it more because it makes me laugh, so overall it's a net positive for me...
no subject
Date: 2019-12-02 04:50 pm (UTC)It's also exactly as you say, why I find it difficult to enjoy actor stuff without it impacting my mental version of the "real"/"idealized" story. Essentially if actor stuff lines up with that story it's fine, I don't mind it, but if it clashes I have this "double-vision" problem and as I'm re-watching the "real" show I can't help thinking about the fact that these are actors acting, and people filming etc. (Like kissing especially, I read an actor talking about what filming a kissing scene is like for them and suddenly couldn't watch ANY kissing scenes because I'd be wondering where the camera was at that moment.) So if the actor is super sweet and happy and they're playing someone somber and stoic, I can't help sensing that the sadness is faked? I know it's ALL acting, but I can't pretend I don't know, in that case.
I like analyzing things a lot and generally tend to integrate all my knowledge into one coherent picture, and so in this scenario knowing the technical aspects (or paying attention to them) means I'm no longer as involved in it as something "real" in my head. It's just how it's always worked for me, and so I manage this by basically death-of-an-author-ing everything for myself by not looking at things :-)
And it's truly fascinating to read how it works for you! I'm glad you wrote it down, because it's a different look at it for me. I'll think about it more and see if I ever feel that way about other things. I think fanfic works that way for me, because I enjoy creating writing as much as I enjoy consuming it. So I can read it as this idealized story, and then read it as a writer trying to learn tips&tricks from it, and one does not interfere with the other. The "craft" of the story doesn't interfere with the idealized version playing out in my head. I've never thought about it in context of the difference with watching something, for me. (I think part of it is that I have a strong visual memory so I can't "unsee" the image of it, such as an expression or emotion... Anyhow.)
no subject
Date: 2019-12-03 11:35 am (UTC)I think the way you describe fanfic, that the craft aspect doesn't interfere with the idealized version, is actually somewhat more like how profic/movies/TV work for me, but there still IS a tipover point where it's too much craft, not enough idealized/fictional reality. I also relate to my own work that way. I can handle analyzing/editing my own craft up to a point, but I do hit a point where it's just like "nope, I have reached the "good enough" point beyond which I'm going to start destroying my own belief in the fictional reality of my world, NOPING OUT NOW." XD
And fwiw, it's taken me a lot of thinking and analyzing and accidentally crossing the line to figure out where that nope-out point actually is for me. I shall now tell you a tragic story of a younger me circa 2015. XD I made a conscious decision to quit writing in early 2015, and genuinely might have quit for good if not for
The eventual tl;dr is that I'm making six figures off my romance writing now, so I was wrong; I just hadn't found the right outlet for my writing to be, all of a sudden, incredibly commercial. And the thing I really should've also considered then (but didn't, at the time, because I was hung up on objective concepts of good vs. bad writing) is that it's incredibly difficult for a show to go for even two or three seasons now, let alone five, so latching onto a five-season show as a source of writing inspiration is not actually a bad move, no matter what other people say about its objective quality. I mean, at this point I kinda just want to turn to every person who scoffs at "50 Shades of Grey" and thinks they have nothing to learn from it, take them gently by the shoulders, and say, "If this is terrible and you know how to do better, then go out there and make even more money than it did. Come back and tell me all about how bad it is after you've done that." Easy, right?
..... Well, no. Of course not. (If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. AS THEY SAY.)
The thing is, yeah, I analyze craft. I do it all the time. But you can also do it too much, if you lose sight of what the craft is trying to convey, and the fact that it is actually doing it well. I think people can get really hung up on the details of objective writing/acting/fx quality and lose sight of "does it do what it set out to do" which, you know what? Sometimes shitty porn that just gets you off is much better for that purpose than well-written porn. Sometimes relatively clumsy writing that is just trying to punch you in the feels has a much more effective punch than something with better writing. And if you get sidetracked onto detailing the errors of its writing, you get lost in a "can't see the forest for the trees" kind of mentality, and lose sight of what it did most effectively in the first place, which was grab you by the neck with feels and drag you kicking and screaming into FEELS COUNTRY. And that is genuinely good writing! It's not the kind that wins Pulitzer prizes, but it is also something that a lot of Pulitzer-winning writers literally couldn't do if their lives depended on it.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2019-12-03 01:22 pm (UTC)Heh, I totally get this! It's not how it works for me, exactly -- when it comes to characters, I am mostly impressed/amused by actors who are very different from their characters. I just love finding out that the evil hated villain was the most popular guy on set and everyone enjoyed working with him! And likewise brooding characters played by cheerful bright actors just make me happy. (I love watching blooper reels of my favorite shows, seeing the actors break in and out of character is just so much fun for me!)
But when it comes to character relationships -- I really do not want to know that two actors playing my favorite friendships or OTPs don't really like each other. Even if they're good at showing their acting skills by acting chemistry...that doesn't completely ruin something for me, but it makes me less comfortable. Which I think is true for a lot of fans, even RPF fans, considering how many RPF fans ship the actors who play their fictional OTPs (for me the romance or lack thereof doesn't bother me, like, I'm very happy if my fictional romantic OTPs are played by people who are totally platonically friends -- but I want them to be friends. In Guardian knowing the two leads became genuine RL friends (they still play video games together, two years after filming ended!) is so good for me!)
And yes, I can analyze the craft of writing in fic and novels too, and slide back and forth between analysis and fanning! Even with my own writing -- I'm actually very capable of squeeing over my own fic, even when I am fully aware of the technical process that went into writing it. And I have beta'd fic that I also just adore on the fannish level. So yeah, that's how I watch TV shows too (actually I really love being able to do it with TV shows, because when I'm fanning on a show I watch it way more often and more closely than I do anything else, and that allows me to notice and appreciate things like direction and editing and subtle acting choices that I would miss if I weren't so engaged...)
ETA: I do wonder if the visual memory is part of it -- I have practically no visual memory, my mind works almost entirely in words? So my mental pictures aren't strong, it's the story that is. (and dialogue, I am really sensitive to voices and voice acting...)
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2019-11-21 08:28 am (UTC)I know that people use it in a light-hearted way on Tumblr, and I always sort of took it as a guilty/embarrassed kind of thing, like "I am putting it down before anyone else can put me down for it because I know it's Bad but I also like it and that's the only way I can justify that dichotomy".
And that's kind of ... a little bit of it, maybe, but I think I never really quite got it before talking with
(I love that we have recreated Trash Discourse in
no subject
Date: 2019-11-21 02:28 pm (UTC)Yeah I didn't really mean to recreate it! Please don't feel any pressure to respond to my ramblings, either of you.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-21 03:50 am (UTC)It's just the way that this discussion can sometimes slip into an otherwise safe space. I might be talking about Fandom X and then suddenly Fandom Y comes up as an example. By the way, Smallville was one of those shows I did watch in as close to a "trashy dumpsterfire" way as is possible for me to watch while still reading and enjoying fic and fandom, but if I was more in love with that canon, it's possible I would have felt hurt about the exact example in that comment. More concretely, it is often that I will be involved in a discussion about Marvel comics, heart aflutter about our shared enjoyment of the thing, and someone will out of nowhere compare MCU unfavourably to the comics and basically trash it. And it's not that I mind them having an opinion like that -- we all like different things! -- but at the moment I'm talking about something enjoyable my guards are down and it is like being hit in the face with a deadfish, basically (to borrow sholio's phrasing from elsewhere). It just sucks the joy out of conversation for me when that happens. It's not even that I'm taking things too seriously, exactly (although the nearer and dearer the fandom is or the more I value the person's opinion about the thing, the more it does sting) it's more like I wish I could have a conversation without having to keep my guard up.
It's really interesting to me to read your posts about this because I definitely understand logically that you fan differently (as many people do, in all kinds of different ways) and it's just really neat to notice where our feelings on this intersect and where they diverge.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-18 07:15 pm (UTC)Actually, it's not even that I wanted conversations to be purely positive, it's just that I wanted space to be able to say "the costume and set designs were really gorgeous" and that to be just as valid as "the orc CGI was bad". Rather than conversations with people who hated it and therefore wanted to argue that every bit of it was terrible, because their overall opinion of it was Bad and therefore no one was allowed to find any part of it Good. And I couldn't deal with that at all.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-19 06:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-11-19 08:23 am (UTC)I have very few feelings about prequels 2 and 3 as they left extremely little impression on me. But The Phantom Menace I LOVE WITH ALL MY HEART. It came out when I was 9 and I VERY DEEPLY imprinted on it and wanted to be Qui Gon's apprentice (Qui Gon is the BEST JEDI) and owned the film novelisation* and merch and all the Jedi Apprentice books and spent many years with my internal narrative stories all wound up in it. I will take zero critisism of that film, I love everything about it :P :P
*I remember my grandparents staying with us that summer and me reading to my granny, who is blind, and THAT WAS THE BOOK I READ HER despite my mum trying very much to get me onto something else. Granny, bless her, kept assuring me she was enjoying it XD