ext_25078 ([identity profile] dexfarkin.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] dexfarkin 2002-10-28 01:07 am (UTC)

Re: Oh, you *knew* I'd reply to this one.... (part the first)

But of course, "X-Men Lite" can have a bundle of other connotations attached ... some of them downright insulting. ;> The implication can EASILY be read, "If you want to write in movieverse, then you don't take your comics (or your writing) seriously." Given that, is it any wonder if people get annoyed?

I'd call that looking for an insult, personally. It's the classic slippery-slope fallacy in arguing. By saying that if A occurs, then it must equal B which must equal C. Let's take a closer look. Does the 90 minutes of the X-Men movie have the same depth as the 40 years of the comics?

No.

Therefore, the protrayels of the X-Men in the movie will likely not touch on the depth of characterization in the comics. That seems to be a fairly safe second step. So, it can be considered that the movie versions of the comics property are going to focus on the surface elements first, and have to build their internal dynamics at a far more rapid pace, likely not to the same depth as the comics have.

There is not a single value judgement in that entire argument. It's saying that the movie versions of the X-Men are not as indepth, fleshed out and complex as the comic versions. It doesn't say that one is bad and another is good. To turn around and pull that sort of blanket assumption is, I'd say, an unfair evaluation of the comic fanfiction community.

I recall my post on 'shipper' fic, and how Victoria P concluded that what I was really trying to say was "Movieverse writes should get serious and start writing more comic fic." even though there was nothing in the post to suggest that, and that it was posted on my Livejournal, which is watched mostly by comic book fanfiction writers. Really awful place to post a challange to the movie community, I'd say.

Perhaps we need to stop interpreting and actually looking to what people say. In terms of messages boards, I did not see any attacks on the C-Fan boards, nor the archive MBs. Now, were those messageboards off X-Fan and numourous fan sites, or actually archive sites?

I can image that if I posted to RACMX about the X-Men movie, I'd likely get a blistering response. But RACMX is not the fanfic community, despite numourous spillovers. Was all of this generated via fansites as opposed to across the widebands of the real writing community? To be honest, if it was over OTL or X-Fiction, I missed it. The C-FAN MB's were humming with Movieverse posts in the early days, and I don't remember a wide movement to condemn them either.

I think my point is that we need to get past what we think people are saying, and look at what they are saying. My reason for not reading Moviefic is the same reason as many people have for not reading Vertigo fic; not interested. When did we make 'not interested' a value judgement?

So, I will pose a question. Was there a time when mainstream comic fanfiction attacked Moviefic? As you say, Where I've personally run into most of it ranges from X-Fan to message boards, to my own journal. Where is it part of the wider consciousness of comic fanfiction?

Otherwise, it's scattered attacks that have become insituition, and that bothers me. Frankly, regarding the post in question, I hardly think StormFreak speaks for comic fanfiction in general, as the fires of her last encounter die down.

So, perhaps this is what's needed. We need to crowbar ourselves off our respective crosses and start looking at things without the blood in our eyes. Stop looking for the things to be offended about, to exclude ourselves, and look at what includes us. X-Fiction and OTL have been nothing but supportive to the vast majority of Movieverse fics that have been posted on them. Movieverse has been supportive of the comicverse writers who have dabbled and crossed over. Let's stop looking at what divides us, and start looking into what brings us together. Sure, I'm not going to start reading your movie fic any more than you're going to start reading my Hellblazer work. However, as communities, we can stop trying to create issues between the groups because of that fact.

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