whynot | and at some point i also have to finish my yuletide fic

So my anthropology final is going to be about fanfiction as a platform for the expression of subaltern rhetoric (specifically, pro-LGBT and pro-women rhetoric), and I'll be using Merlin and Narnia fandoms as case studies. Basically, my essay is about: YOU GUYS. I have a 4-page outline for 20-ish (15-ish?) pages and it's due on Tuesday omg.

It was such a trip making this outline. I was writing about The Last Battle, and my gut instinct was to warn for spoilers. Spoilers! Warning for spoilers in an academic essay: I WON'T DO IT, but it feels wrong not to anyway! I'm probably going to compile stats & figures from LJ comms, fic archives, and

kinkme_merlin (OMG I'M GONNA TALK ABOUT KINKME_MERLIN IN AN ACADEMIC PAPER) to support my claim that, what, people are into slash. Maybe I'll even make a table of it and put it in the appendix?!? MAYBE I'LL MAKE PIE CHARTS D: D: (XD)

There are peer-reviewed journals and published books about this stuff, but this paper doesn't feel like a grad-level anthro final. It feels like a "what I did over my summer vacation" essay, or an especially self-indulgent LJ post.

I've some interview questions for you guys, 'cos it's not everyday that the subject of my paper topic is but a flist away! Answer one, some, or all; I'd be happy with whatever.

1) Activism within fandom: is it effective? What are examples? I'm talking about when fandom bands together and does something concrete-ish in terms of fund- and awareness-raising. Like, what was that thing not so long ago where ppl were like, "Donate money to this pro-LGBT cause and I'll produce a fanwork for you!"? Or what about the Strikethrough migration, what the hell was up with that? This question is asked in context of why we choose fantasy fiction as a valid battleground for identity politics.

2) Why DO you write fanfiction? What are the relationships between ficcer, fic, and canon to you? (I'm especially interested in the opinions of those who porn, because I do not tend to porn and feel like I'm missing out on a huge subsection of fandom because of it.)

3) How tangible is the fannish community? Do you chat with these people everyday? Do you email them often, or about non-fannish things? Do you meet them IRL? What is the value of your interactions with fellow fans?

4) Small fandom (e.g. Narnia) vs. large fandom (e.g. Merlin): do you have a preference? Why?

5) "Fanfiction is the act of taking something that doesn’t represent you and transforming it into something that does." Discuss.

Non-interviewy questions--

a) What is that article about Merlin when it was new, in which Colin and Bradley were surprised/chuffed that the show was so embraced by the gay community?
b) Do you guys have links to the Merlin producers/publicists blatantly shipping Bradley/Colin, even if just for the slash fans' benefit? Like, that time when Bradley was playing charity soccer and Julian Jones or wtfe was like yeah, Colin's gonna be there with a sponge and bucket to wipe him down.
c) Not for my essay, but: are Katie McGrath's eyes green or blue? THEY'RE GREEN DAMMIT, but I've seen a lot of blue in fics. (GREEN.)

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3. Well, I'm writing a novel with someone I met online (

aella_irene), and I swear that sometimes I spend more time interacting with her via the intarwebs than I do with the people I live with. We're on with each other on a daily basis -- not on chat, because I don't do that, but via e-mail and googledocs and occasionally LJ. I've gotten Christmas cards from fen I've never met in the flesh (and have to send a few back, uh, whoops), I've gotten packages from fen I've never met in the flesh, I've sent packages (both non-fannish); there are a number of people I interact with both on LJ/DW, via e-mail, and Twitter. Sometimes it is fandom-related. Sometimes it is not. A few people I know RL names; most people I do not. At some point in time,

redangel618 and I will actually manage to meet up in RL, given the fact that we both live in the same city in the same general area. (We tried to meet up during Mardi Gras last year, but that kind of failed.) And, as we have established, I have kind of been making study-abroad choices on where the greatest number of fen are in any given area in order to have a ready-made community available. So. *shrug* I've been in fandom for eight years now, coming up on nine, and fandom's a living, breathing entity. It's a community that's as real to me as any one I've ever been in. It's not just something you can turn on or turn off; I think in fandom now, in ships and OTPs and YMMVs and fannish talk. I've probably learned more in fandom than I have in school. (And dude, if I could have just substituted eight years of fandom for my Intro to Gender and Sexuality Studies class, I'm pretty sure I could have still passed the final.)

4. The bigger the fandom, the more segmented it is. It's a lot easier to find your niche in a big fandom, and in a big fandom, you don't interact with people outside that niche. Small fandoms don't have that luxury as much. There's about the same percentage of crap in large and small fandoms, only in big fandoms, there's a lot more good stuff just by the laws of percentages. (Uh. Pretend that makes sense.) But -- big fandoms can be kind of lonely, sometimes. It's hard to get to know people. Of course, if you try and get to know people in small fandoms and you're writing stuff people hate, it's much less likely you'll find people who like it. So it's all relative. That boils down to -- considering I literally do not interact with my current fandom outside of my own journal and only occasionally in ficathons, I have no opinion on the subject at the moment.

5. Um. I don't...think so? Maybe for other people, but I don't think of fic that way. It's not about me (except of course it's about me, I'm the one writing it); it's about the story and the universe and what feels right. Thinking about fic as a representation of yourself seems...selfish, somehow, I guess.

ETA: On second thought, my concept of a fluid canon doesn't come so much from comics fandom, which I've never been active in (I read a lot in Smallville, some in Batman, but otherwise it's very little, and I've never written there), but from Star Wars fandom, which has layers of canon: movies take priority (but then there are the different versions of the movies, now), but then there are comics, books, deleted scenes, TV series, interviews, etc. I know that SW fandom has a very elaborate system of what takes priority in what order, mostly based on how involved George Lucas was. Fic writers could pick and choose from the different layers of canon (some of which, you know, contradicted each other, because the SW universe was, ah, very, very large). (I should probably able that I was involved on the very, very tail-end of the prequel trilogy fandom, about a year after RotS came out but before the Clone Wars series started airing. I'm old school, but not so old school as to be talking about the original trilogy.)

Also -- for me, writing fic is something of performance art. I don't generally write unless I think there's going to be an audience. Not always, but sometimes. (Possibly more often than not? I'm not entirely certain on this point, because...it's been a while.) Or at least when I'm initially getting into a fandom.

Edited 2009-12-19 07:48 (UTC)

I've probably learned more in fandom than I have in school. (And dude, if I could have just substituted eight years of fandom for my Intro to Gender and Sexuality Studies class, I'm pretty sure I could have still passed the final.)
Oh man, do I feel similarly. Fandom has become prevalent in my life and how I think about things, so the RL/fandom divide is coming apart almost of its own volition.

SW fandom has a very elaborate system of what takes priority in what order, mostly based on how involved George Lucas was.
O_O Wow...

FIC AS PERFORMANCE ART. That is a really interesting way to put it, and I relate to it a lot. I get bitten by Ocean Girl (or whatever) plot bunnies, but I never follow through on those because I don't want to put in all this work if no one's gonna pay attention. And then I guess I'm into the audience participation too, because there are those round-robin commentfics.

Yeah, and just -- I grew up with fandom, you know? It was probably just as big a part of my life as middle school and high school. Fandom is -- its own culture, and its own community, and we have our own bloody language (and sometimes food, too).

SW fandom is psychocakes. I think the order goes OT, PT, the current Clone Wars TV series (maybe?), certain comics, certain books, etc... But that's an old school fandom that's been around for decades and is still getting new material, so it's kind of an interesting example. Even though comics fandoms might have, say, a lot of canon, I've never heard that it has those layers of canon that SW does.

Food? What kind of food is fandom food?

Oh yeah, I vaguely remember 14 Valentines. Hmm. Never really kept up with it when it was going on. Maybe I should.

I don't know if there's really a specific fandom food, I was just kind of vaguely thinking about when people come up with recipes that are inspired by some kind of food that a canon will mention. So I'm not sure how related that is; since it's not a group activity, it may not qualify as -- as fandom-related as, say, a fic or a wallpaper. (Then again, there are Harry Potter- and Battlestar Galactica- and Red Dwarf- and Bones- inspired knitting patterns, too, so -- I'm not sure how much that sort of thing qualifies as a fandom activity, rather than something that's purely done "by fans." Those are just the patterns I could think of off the top of my head, BTW, not to say that knitters who are fans don't do other fandoms.)

I have been looking back at the 2009 14 Valentines round-ups all afternoon and am fascinated. Not by the fic, since I'm not really reading at the moment, but by the icons and the music and the essays, and -- well, it's me, the recipes and the knitting.

and at some point i also have to finish my yuletide fic

hi, this is bedlam and your daily dose of sounding completely crazy (part, uh, 2/2)

Re: hi, this is bedlam and your daily dose of sounding completely crazy (part, uh, 2/2)

Re: hi, this is bedlam and your daily dose of sounding completely crazy (part, uh, 2/2)

Re: hi, this is bedlam and your daily dose of sounding completely crazy (part, uh, 2/2)

Re: hi, this is bedlam and your daily dose of sounding completely crazy (part, uh, 2/2)