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Posts From The Desert - MOVIEVERSE
A little subsection of a group of notions that have recently been noted on my earlier post about the CBFFAs. It's a minor little thought that has occured to me, and seeing as my little exile is all about exploring those thoughts, I am going to run with it.
I wonder why the idea exists that X-Men Movieverse is a ghetto of the comic book fanfiction community. Some of the major early work in that community was done by people who were big on the comicfic side of the fence. There is a fair amount of cross-over involved. Yet, it seems that a large number of exclusively movieverse writers feel as if they're advancing against a storm of hatred; modern martyrs of fanfiction.
It puzzles me because I didn't know that any of us comic book fanfiction writers were supposed to hate Movieverse fic until someone told me that I did.
When Movieverse first came out, the overall opinion of the community was that the movie was damn good. I took forty-five people to see it during DexCon. (Side note: Funniest movie comments ever provided in a packed theatre by Speedy Paul. "Ah just kissed him and he was in a coma for eight months." "Cause she's just that good!" and "Senator Kelly is dead." "On the plus side, if anyone's thirsty...") However, the opinion on reading fic about it was lukewarm at best. Some, like Dyce and Kielle looked forward to it. Others, like myself, really didn't care.
It was a good movie. It was about the best adaption of the X-Men to the big screen you could hope for, while still retaining their personalities. But they were still X-Men Lite. Two hours verses forty years? I'll take my comic canon.
That seemed to be the end of the issue. The Movieverse grew (exponentially) and drew in some comic writers. It also started with some people who crossed over later. However, in general, it seemed to be it's own community, with it's own stars and issues and ideas.
The Rogue/Logan debate was the first real spill-over that I noted. The idea of their's as a sexual relationship was treated by most comic writers with the same mindset that they approached Logan/Kitty and Logan/Jubilee relationships. Some were huge fans of it. That distaste seemed to rankle the L/R people (shippers, guild, community? I'm not sure the word) which touched off the first cross-community argument. Even that was considered by most comic writers, including myself, as an off-handed little argument in a corner. Obviously, it was not considered in the same light by the L/R writers.
Then came the CBFFAs. I'm not going to get into the logistics, suffice to say that I made the significant error in not barring them or throwing the doors wide open right off the bat. My vague 'gentlemen's agreement' idea led to a lot of ill feeling. This was compounded by a very unfortunate element of the Movieverse community who felt they had the right to demand their own categories, and threaten the integrity of the awards if not appeased. (The Best Serious-Logan/Rogue, Best Humourous-Logan/Rogue and my favourite, Best Erotic-Logan/Rogue were the main demands) Talk about tarring the entire community with the same brush. Completely devalued the opinions of the Movieverse in one stroke. The sheer volume and viciousness of the attacks left me raw to the far more reasonable voices of Naomi and Minisinoo.
Even after all that, I don't hate the Movieverse. However, it still doesn't interest me all that much. Again, X-Men Lite. I realise that there are many fine writers involved and producing likely some exceptional work. Still, I'm not very interested in it. Same reason I don't read much Batman fanfiction. Don't care. Characters don't interest me.
My sojourn into Movieverse is because the exploration of Doctor Jean Grey fascinates me, and I get to do horrible things to Mister Sinister. Even writing it, I'm still not all that interested in the characters. They feel less real to me than thier comic canon versions.
Which brings me to the question: Is this why Movieverse fanfic writers feel ghettozied? (Or if they don't, is this why Victoria P feels ghettozied?) Is it because they get disinterest about their work, while a new comic fanfiction story receives interest?
I'm rather curious on this, mostly because after reading the past posts on the X-Men Movieverse list, most of the struggles seem to be between seperate bodies of Movieverse writers arguing about interpretation, or the ever present 'Logan/Rogue' question. A wash of comic fanfic writer's posting negative protrayels of Movieverse wasn't amoungst that.
Perhaps there's an idea that Movieverse should be interchangable with comicverse, on an archival level, which has not happened to a large extent. Or perhaps that disinterest is taken as a personal rejection as a writer. Or is it that even though you're writing about a movie property of a comic book, you feel the characters and concepts should be interchangable?
Anyhow, feel free to elighten me. If you're a Movieverse writer and feel like you've been relegated to a second class citizen by comic book fanfiction, explain why that is. This is not a trial or a place for justifications. I'm honestly curious why the feeling exists, and in what ways you feel it's manifested on a regular basis. Enlighten me.
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Thus the taking-personally. Perhaps this goes back to your point about any given group assuming itself to be "the fanfic community."
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I wasn't trying to attribute anything extra to your response. What I meant about going back to your point was that perhaps the reason some of us take "some comicverse people" personally or at least assume it means "somebody on OTL/somebody in whatever-we-define-as-this-community" might be the tendency to identify ourselves as "the" comic fanfiction community.
I think I'm still not being terribly coherent. I apologize.
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Because to *me*, fandom always seems to define itself - and fans themselves - by exclusion.
Not "we're the cool kids and you're not" (which would be the typical high school scenario we all decry), but "They're (whoever this mysterious 'they' is) the cool Divas/BNFs/whatever today's buzzword is and *we're* the outsiders, the fringe-dwellers, the marginalized, the ones who speak the truth and should be listened to because we haven't bought into the political bullshit The Cabal of Mighty BNFs(TM) has set up."
Or maybe that's just my time in Smallville speaking. *g*
Because fandom is always setting up these juxtapositions, these dichotomies - slash v. het, noromo v. shipper, dark v. light, pairing X v. pairing Y, quality v. crap etc. etc. - and where one stands (much easier to find out nowadays with LJ/blogs) allows one to be slotted into a box by one's fellow fans.
So I find it interesting that you're saying people in comic-fandom would make the leap to "we are the community", because the other fandoms I've been involved in or observed would have the opposite leap, to "we're being marginalized by the community!"
Which, in fact, may be part of the dynamic at work in my own response to the original question about the CBFFAs.
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Now, it may simply be that I'm oblivious (which is true -- I have to be (figuratively please!) hit over the head with a brick to notice some types of things), but I understand there are several groups I don't really know anything about. DarkMark has repeatedly mentioned DC writers who don't post to OTL, whom most members thus don't know about, but are apparently in touch with each other with only a few cross-links (such as, well, him). There are message board groups that have been mentioned. There are the formal group-writing projects that essentially try to put out their own version of the comics... well, go to someone else for a better explanation. ;) There are probably circles of perfectly good writers on ff.net who review each other and look for interesting newbies. (Actually I know of one or two, kind of, from HP fandom, though I started finding the authors through another archive). I know Legion of Superheroes has its own groups.
I think this community (such as it is?) or subset of the fandom tends to define itself as a community based on being linked by various forms of communication.
CFAN, Subreality, and OTL are kind of central. Subreality was... a little different, broader in once sense and something else entirely in another and a community in yet a third.... Darn it, I'm being inarticulate again and don't know how to fix it. CFAN and OTL were started, I believe, with the explicit purpose of being inclusive -- Kielle wanted to link ALL the fanfiction archives to CFAN so people could find them after one really big, inclusive one bit the dust; it spread. OTL is in theory (somewhat ambitious theory, perhaps) supposed to be the mailing list for all comic-book fanfiction, even though having been started by admittedly a fairly X-Men heavy crew it hasn't been able to convince a very high proportion of DC ficwriters of this, I think. See DarkMark for extensive complaint on this topic. ;)
So we don't manage to get everybody, and we don't really TRY to get people who (for example) write stories as if they are unfamiliar with half the keyboard, and there are other circles of communication that we'd see as different (possibly smaller, but I couldn't say for sure) communities -- but being within this one, and with its having been for a long time one of the easiest to find (apparently we need to publicize OTL somewhere easily googleable ;)), we do tend to think of it as the largest (hence most inclusive) and the main one.
Your point that others may define themselves by being marginalized is interesting. I think I can see that in some cases -- there seems even within this one to be a periodic perception that "newbies can't get a break," which seems odd given the number of writers lately who've taken the list by storm their first year, and Frito's not the only one who's heard that others think OTL is a hostile environment and is puzzled. We do have arguments sometimes, yes, but I actually think that's partly because some of the divisions you mentioned above are present -- but both sides consider themselves part of the community and are darned well going to fight for their own views in it.
And while we certainly don't have everyone, additions are welcome if they're reasonably civil and preferably not pre-convinced either that they're going to remake the place or that we hate them. Though presumably they wouldn't think the latter, if we're merging. I would think.
And then you have those who argue that there is no community. I think the loose-definition-by-communication works fairly well, though, myself.
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Well! ;-)
Actually, Perse, DM's complaint, to be a bit more accurate, is not that there wasn't / isn't enough DC fic on OTL. It's that there wasn't / isn't enough fic that wasn't X-based. Though, of course, the ratio is getting a bit better. I've maintained that I'd be happy to see ficts starring other Marvel characters (and sometimes I have). But thanks to the majority of ficcers in CFAN seeming to be heavily X-oriented, we don't seem to get much of that.
Which is a darned shame.
OTOH, when Smith or Nute or I want to use characters from Outside, we've got the field to ourselves. So there is a benefit.
But usually, if you want to read about something that isn't X on OTL, you're gonna have to do some hunting.
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Deconstruction of a Tragedy -- Syntax -- Batverse
Death Comes for Everyone Someday -- Anne Marsh -- Authority (This one I'll admit might qualify as one you have to hunt for, as it's hiding under a subject line of Re: Challenges something or other)
Heels Britannia -- Dex -- Vertigo/BtVS
Just One Word -- Anne Marsh -- Sandman
Fade to Black -- Cherry Ice -- Smallville
God Slave, the Queen -- Dex -- Invisibles
Love and Abaddon -- Anne Marsh -- Sandman
Sure, there was also a fair amount of X and X-satellite fic, including multiple chapters of a couple things the authors had been working on for a long time, and assorted peripheral topics are taking up some of my page, but I'd hardly say the above list required actual "hunting."
Then again, while I don't recall your mentioning Anne Marsh, we already knew you liked Dex and Cherry. ;)
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Of course, we have had fics written about Thor, Captain America, Daredevil, Spidey, and a few others, in my time on OTL, but they're pretty few and far between. Larissa James used to make a point of ficcing the mainstream non-X Marvel characters, but she's been absent for a good while.
Smith and Nute turn out a story of non-X Marvels every now and then, and, of course, I've done FIRE! But it seems strange that we've got such a big gap there, considering there's the aforementioned heroes to write about, plus Iron Man, the FF, Sub-Mariner, Dr. Strange, the Defenders, Nick Fury, the Black Widow, Adam Warlock, the Silver Surfer, the New Warriors, the Black Panther, the Avengers...but what the heck.
It's all, of course, in what you want to write about. But how come there's such a gap there?
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"So I find it interesting that you're saying people in comic-fandom would make the leap to "we are the community", because the other fandoms I've been involved in or observed would have the opposite leap, to "we're being marginalized by the community!""
Actually...I think this it true, though. I think PK is right. When I think of the 'main' comic-fic community, I think of CFAN, Subreality, the associated message boards of Scratching Post, Behind the Scenes, Duke-Out Board, Rant and Rave, the assorted IRC chatrooms such as subcafe, fictalk, etc, the LJ 'collectives' (for lack of a better word) of most of the members who USED to frequent said messageboards...and the Dexcon/Subcon, assorted fan-fic gatherings.
OTL is *generally* where most of the people in the above collage of places tend to post fanfic. Though there are posters on OTL who don't generally frequent said above collage of places. :)
Confusing enough? :) To the best of my recollection, and I came in about two years or so later, Hawk's fanfic archive spawned several other archives and eventually led to CFAN. Most of the people frequently those previous archives congregated to OTL, and to the CFAN community (referencing all of the above listed gaggle of places).
To the best of my memory, X-Fan didn't even HAVE messageboards when the 'CFAN community' started, and FF.net wasn't even on the radar. So I think the 'CFAN community' does tend to regard itself as the 'main' comic-fic community, because we've been around longer. That's not to say that there's not mix and match, and I'm sure there are plenty of 'CFAN' folk who post to X-Fan, and FF.net, and etc.
But when I hear 'comic-fic community', I think of CFAN. X-Fan and FF.net, and other assorted posts are an afterthought. (And personally, I've always lumped movieverse in as a subgenre of comic-fic...but I guess others don't. :) While I can't speak for everyone, I'm fairly certain most 'CFAN' people do NOT regard X-Fan or FF.net as part of the 'CFAN' community...which as I've already said, we tend to kind of think of as the 'main' comic-fic community.
No arrogance there at all! :) The only other point I have is that the 'CFAN' (and I keep using those quotations because it's not an entirely correct term. There are so many people who use/know/interact with CFAN that probably wouldn't be considered or consider themselves to be part of the 'CFAN community.') community may be slightly different from X-Fan or FF.net, in that there are QUITE a lot of 'real-life' meetings and gatherings and friendships. Most (not all, of course) of the individuals responding to Dex's journal are individuals who've meet each other in person at least once or twice. I don't think, from what I've heard, that that is true of FF.net or X-Fan. And I have no idea if that's true of folks on the big Yahoogroups lists.
I don't know if any of that is clarifying, or just more confusing. :)
peace,
Heatherly
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Heck, I knew I posted to ACFF specifically because Hawk archived everything on it. Although I recall her complaining the pre-Subreality writer-avatar posts that became "Abyss in Chains" weren't fanfic... anyway. When Hawk quit archiving, there was a big discussion of what to do, where would people go to find fic? Some people pointed out that there already were archives out there, what they needed was a site that linked all of them... And that's when Kielle set up CFAN. :)
These days, I'm afraid ACFF is home mainly to spam, hype, and the very rare story posted by someone who hasn't given up on the place. But if you want to see what it was like in the old days, there's always the google archives...
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(And totally side-note...*I* remember when there WAS no Gossamer! And good old Reaper at the main X-Files site had created a 'secret' page for us to post fanfic to, with Chris Carter's hush-hush permission. At least till Fox found out...*so she says, tottering off on her cane ;)
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Buffy is very, very splintered, even with the BFA, which was set up recently to be like what Gossamer is for XF because there was no central Buffy archive *at all*, just lots and lots and lots of very specific ones and then loose confederations of sites like the BtVS Writers Guild, etc.
So I find it interesting that quite a few people *do* see OTL/CFAN etc. as a community, for meta reasons in comparison with other fandoms, where communities are often made of those who perceive themselves as marginalized and the community is this amorphous mass Other that nobody wants to belong to because the eve-mysterious They is doing the marginalizing.
There's a pervasive "It's my bat and ball and if you don't play by my rules I'm going home" mentality in fandom, and since it's so easy to create a new mailing list, fandoms splinter over the merest trifles.
Does that make more sense about why I find this so interesting, aside from any movieverse/comicverse sturm und drang?
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