dexfarkin

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

musesfool.livejournal.com

Not really, considering having Victoria P. in the other thread claiming comic-verse folks don't show interest in movieverse and yet hearing that only six of seventy-odd movie-verse authors who voted didn't bother with the comic-side at all rather irritated me. So if that's the claim of offense movieverse folks have, I would think they'd try to set a good example rather than "Do as we say, not as we do." =)

I can't speak for other movieverse folks. I voted for (almost) all the categories that were X-related. If I'd read one of the stories before awards season, I went and I read the others before voting.

The only categories I didn't vote in were non-X related, because well, I don't read any Batman or Authority or whatever fanfic. Sandman, otoh... There isn't much Sandman fanfic out there, which is probably a good thing, and a whole different LJ entry.

My claim of bitterness is based, again, on the conflation of movieverse fiction with bad fiction.

It's simply not so that all movieverse fic sucks, and when people say it does, that sets my back up, because I know it's not true. I know I don't suck, nor does Min, nor Die, nor Jenn etc.

Does that make sense?

From:

seperis.livejournal.com

LJ limits, gah.

Victoria: I can't speak for other movieverse folks. I voted for (almost) all the categories that were X-related. If I'd read one of the stories before awards season, I went and I read the others before voting.

I for one had no idea there were awards until I found an email from Minisinoo saying I was nominated in a couple of categories. Granted, I was offline January through mid March, and when I got back, the awards were almost over, and it took me an extra couple of days to figure out what had happened. It was another day or so before I found out what I was nominated for.

Diebin didn't know until I told her in chat a few days after I got back, and we both went looking for the ballot, which I couldn't find. Misty and Molly didn't know, both prolific movieverse writers. I could do a poll, since I'm in touch with a lot of them, and find out who knew, because everyone I talked to seemed pretty damn surprised and curious if they'd made the ballot. It wasn't neglect--if I'd been aware in time to vote, I probably would have. *shrugs*

But I was offline, so this doesn't apply to me anyway.

My claim of bitterness is based, again, on the conflation of movieverse fiction with bad fiction.

It's simply not so that all movieverse fic sucks, and when people say it does, that sets my back up, because I know it's not true. I know I don't suck, nor does Min, nor Die, nor Jenn etc.

Does that make sense?

Hee. I don't suck. I should make that my new sig line.

I've read the arguments up and down, and Vic and I have discussed this before. But if you're wondering what leads to the insecurity, not to mention the bitterness and knee-jerk, I'd guess it could be the multiple messageboards, including two on subreality that I remember, with threads not devoted to the criticism of just the fanfic, but labeling the writers pedophiles, as Vic has said. FF.net X-Men comics section where Diebin posted her movieverse work before ff.net opened up a movieverse section was at a two flames to one feedback on at least a couple of stories--I'm not sure if they're still up but the author search for Diebin would clarify that. Not just the idiotic teeny-bopper, badly spelled RougeLuvsGambit4EVA! (misspelling intentional), but grammatically correct, cool, and utterly demoralizing paragraphs explaining how BAD Diebin was for writing her choice of pairings and genre, in quich the high quality of her work was attacked on the singular basis of being movieverse. I know of at least one messageboard that linked itself to my Jus Ad Bellum within the last six months, deriding movieverse writers and L/R writers in particular at length. It could be the feedback a friend received on one of her better stories from a comicfen that told her that her story would be so much better if it was comicverse and how bad her characterizations were because they weren't comicverse. It could be the fact that this is actuallyy coming up AGAIN and people are acting so surprised, as if this is something they've never heard of before.

continued in next

From:

mitai.livejournal.com

Just on the pairings . . . I have to admit that any time I see an Ororo/Victor Creed shipper fic, I instantly think 'crap' and will only read it if I'm in the mood to torture myself. Even putting aside canon (which is admittedly difficult for me to do) and just going on the movie, I do not believe you can build a real relationship out of "You owe me a scream."

She's bloody terrified of the big manly animal that wants to rape her, but suddenly it's a wonderful redeeming relationship! All in a few months! And don't tell me I haven't read enough of them, because I specifically went looking for a good one when Stormfreak started bitching. And I never found a one - a single one - that even began to convince me that this relationship was possible.

Storm is portrayed in the movie as a very easily frightened woman. Unlike canon. She freaks when Kelly gooshes on the floor, she's visibly shaking when Creed's got ahold of her, and while she comes through in the end, and conquers that fear, the entire purpose (I think) is showing you that she doesn't have the same combat experience the canon Storm does, nor the same self-confidence. Yet suddenly she has the strength of character to forgive Creed for his faults and the guy that simply snarls at his boss for locking him in a cell and snarls at Toad for making rude comments is a caring and gentle lover?

We won't mention that in most of those fics he suddenly sprouts the canon Creed's vocabulary and starts acting like a normal human being 99% of the time, which he clearly didn't in the movie, and while women fantasize about big manly men coming and taking them whether they're willing or no, in reality it's not the same. There are ten million semi-recent rape threads on the LJs of these participants to reference if you need further clarification.

That's the reason I won't buy that pairing. And I really don't think anyone has the 'right' to be offended with me because I haven't read their fic. Maybe there's one out there that really can convince me it somehow happens. I'm sure that same fic will be on a great archive in the next year or so when I'm brave enough to try again, and until then, I will continue to have the opinion that anyone who puts those two together is leading a great personal fantasy life and have left the rest of the planet and probability/reality out to dry.

Incidentally, I think there's Storm/Stryfe slash on my LJ that was put up as a satire for the entire concept and I encourage anyone who disagrees with my opinino here to go read it and see if that pairing makes sense to them.

From:

musesfool.livejournal.com

Storm is portrayed in the movie as a very easily frightened woman. Unlike canon.

Canon Storm. Canon Creed.

WTF?

Storm in the movie is Canon Storm for the movie. Creed in the movie is Canon Creed in the movie.

I don't get why this is a problem.

What is canon, if not the source material one uses to discuss a text, and to write fanfic that grows from/builds on/transgresses that text?

If movie!Storm isn't canon, which Storm is? 616? AoA? the original cartoon? Ultimate? Evolution?

I don't get Storm/Sabretooth either, but if someone wants to write it, more power to 'em. I have a delete button and I use it frequently.

From:

mitai.livejournal.com

Canon Storm - Storm from the 40+ years of comic books.

Movieverse Storm - Storm from the movie.

It's a nice shorthand way to seperate the two. I think of Storm in the canon sense as comics always. Because if you find Storm in fanfic, she's not canon Storm, she's ____ writer's Storm. Shadowlands Storm, or Wings and Dreams Storm, or whatever. Therefore it's easy to shorthand the movie Storm to Movieverse Storm.

As for inconsistencies of Storm in the comics - that's why we write fanfiction. =) To fix 'em. If the comics were perfect, there'd be no need for fanfiction, no 'problems' to correct or explain. If one wants to 'fix' Storm and Creed in the movie, as you say, more power to them. But no one has made me believe it, and I don't particularly like the idea that thinking "Ro/Creed shipper fic is crappy" is going to give someone the right to flame me for offending them. I gave my reasons for thinking the way I do above, and apparently you didn't find fault with the logic. =)

From:

musesfool.livejournal.com

Canon Storm - Storm from the 40+ years of comic books.

Movieverse Storm - Storm from the movie.

Now see, maybe I'm being oversensitive in my caffeine-free state, but I find that condescending.

Yeah, sure, 'Movieverse Storm' is good short hand for discussing the differences in characterization between the movie and the core comics, so I would say (using conventions picked up on X-Fiction and not knowing what the wider X-fandom world uses), Movie!Storm v. Ultimate!Storm v. 616!Storm in discussing her character, because for each universe, that particular characterization is canon.

To use 'Canon Storm' for the comics character and 'Movieverse Storm' for the movie character seems to me to be saying that Movieverse Storm isn't canon *at all.* And that's just not so. If it's onscreen, it's canon.

If one wants to 'fix' Storm and Creed in the movie, as you say, more power to them. But no one has made me believe it, and I don't particularly like the idea that thinking "Ro/Creed shipper fic is crappy" is going to give someone the right to flame me for offending them. I gave my reasons for thinking the way I do above, and apparently you didn't find fault with the
logic.

Well, no.

I said I don't *get* Storm/Creed. I don't read it. For all I know, there may be good Storm/Creed fic out there. I would never dismiss all of it as crap because I don't like the pairing.

To bring it a little closer to my reality (which may not be yours), I loathe Logan/Jean. Hate it with a fiery vengeance and actually get nauseated if I read too much of it.

I will be the first person to tell you that there are some lovely Logan/Jean stories out there, even though I hate the pairing. Not all of the writing in the subgenre is crap. How could it be, when good authors like Jenn or Min or Molly or Jane St Clair are writing it?

So, no, I don't agree with your black licorice or chocolate comparisons.

You can say that you believe all black licorice is crappy because you don't like the taste, but not liking something isn't the same thing as something not being any good.

To use your chocolate analogy, you can say that all chocolate is crappy because you don't like TimTams (heathen! TimTams are the cookies of the gods), but that doesn't take into account Godiva or Ghirardelli chocolates, or dark chocolate, white chocolate and all the mryiad variations of chocolate that there are.

Can you deprive yourself of all chocolate? Sure, and good luck with that. No argument here - more chocolate for me.

But I'll argue against any blanket statement that it's all bad based on one subsection of the whole.

One more analogy: I don't like fan-written RPF (and in fact, I have problems with much professional RPF). I have ethical qualms about it. Huge honking ones. So I don't read it. I also think N'Sync are a bunch of not-real-cute, not-real-talented boys, so I'm fair baffled by the explosion of *nslash, and the love of it by people whom I consider intelligent.

So I'm pretty anti-RPF. I don't read it, don't write it, and don't encourage others to do so.

Because I know the caliber of many of the authors writing it, I cannot dismiss it as crap. I'm sure there are wondeful nslash and LotRips stories out there among the Mary Sue/Legolas dreck.

I guess I just expect the same consideration for movieverse fic.

From:

frito-kal.livejournal.com

That if you are going to suggest that subreality-associated messageboards have gone so far as to call people pedophiles or go flaming people, that you should provide links.

All the subreality-associated message boards are linked off CFAN, and I have not been able to find these threads.

Could you perhaps be mistaken?

From:

seperis.livejournal.com

*lj eats first post*

Okay, trying again....

Normally I'd say yes, because the memory is two years old and that was a fandom ago. Original thread(s) I read were posted between late Augustish/early Septmber to late November 2000, though I want to say the actual content was roughly late-Septmber/early Octoberish, but that's at best a guess. However, the links I saw were by specific recommendation at the time, so I'm as sure as I can be that I'm right.

Clarifiying

All the subreality-associated message boards are linked off CFAN, and I have not been able to find these threads.

I'm not sure how this works--hosted BY subreality.com? No. Linked in subreality.com, yes. If there's been confusion due to my phrasing, my apologies.

jenn, third try at posting

From:

tylergrrls.livejournal.com

This is from ONE story.

One. :)

matchmaker 2001-01-13 1 Anonymous
You think Logan would actually stop loving Jean? And for Rouge? You obviously don't know about the x-men. You suck and need to be set straight!

Bandit 2000-11-18 1 Signed
REmy would NEVER do that!!! I object!!! I object fiercly!!! GRRRR!!!
WRITER'S CHALLENGE: WRITE A LOVE STROY ABOUT NIGHTCRAWLER WITH ONE OF THE X-WOMEN THEN SEND YOUR NAME TO ME SO I CAN READ IT!!!

Jean1 2000-11-19 1 Anonymous
Oh please. I wasn't going to post until he R/L shippers came out to praise this. - "1)Remy had a reason, he's not a complete jackass." - Right. Not that anyone gets to know what it is so he can still look like the "Evil Rival Boyfriend" (TM) in the story anyway; especially for such an absurd plot device -nah no don't want to touch my girlfriend. I'd love to see a sequel by someone who cares where Remy gets to be explored. He seems to be the far more interesting character if he had actually been written and not a cypher. Not that usually everyone else in your stories besides Logan and Marie aren't always cyphers. Thank goodness this is whiny crybaby movie Marie (who still acts like a helpless teenager years later it seems) since one wonders why an adult woman wouldn't just confront Remy and work out the problem insteading of running like a child to Wolverine to cry on his shoulder so he can use her for it. These two losers deserve each other and hopefully will make each other miserable for a lifetime. And at least for that reason, I actually liked it better than anything before now.

The last one is the one that I took seriously, and that one hurt me the most. However, even when facing the fact that I quite probably did do a poor job--I still felt insulted that I was being judged so harshly based on Comic Standards as opposed to Movie Standards (in which there is no Gambit). Oh well. I guess that's what we got for trying to integrate without total sucess--the reason I stopped trying to research the comics to add to stories.

Then there were these type of replies, which were better because they didn't say 'you suck morn':

Darth Gouki 2000-12-13 1 Anonymous
Why does everybody seem to have this fascination with the Logan/Rogue relationship?!!? He's old enough to be her grandfather!! Nevertheless, this was another well written story.

That was hillarious! Kind of disgusting I mean, Logan and Marie? she's way too young for him. But good job anyway.

dorkinbabylon 2001-03-10 1 Signed
Well...I'm certain some of those sock knitting grandmas out there will approve of this.

Of course, this is my favorite review ever. (You remember this Jenn--I believe it's the one you were referencing above)...

Rogue LeBeau 2000-11-16 1 Anonymous
DARN NOT GOOD wolvie Rogue NO I HATE YOU Rogue/Gambit Forever the Me not like you

So yeah. Those are some examples of the love we got back in the old day. ;)

-Diebin

From:

seperis.livejournal.com

Perception is a hell of a lot more important than reality. When I entered the fandom two years ago, those were the first things I read and saw--Diebin's flames, the messageboards, etc. This is, I think, what shaped a LOT of us in our views of comicverse. It's a nasty generalization to make, I know, and completely unfair. It's right up there with equating L/R fic with badfic, come to think. Or movieverse fic with badfic, for that matter.

I'm extremely good at what I do. It's a hit or miss sometimes, but I've been storytelling since my memory starts, so if I wasn't good at it by now, I wouldn't bother doing it. Being told, "I don't like that pairing", is very cool. I write Smallville slash and run at the sight of het--I totally get that argument. Being told, "I just don't care for movieverse as a genre", that's fine too. I'm not so hot for comicverse myself. Being told, directly, indirectly, passive aggressive, veiled innuendo, straight out or subtle, that it doesn't matter if Hemingway was writing it, the fact that it's movieverse MAKES it suck is just--frustrating. I'm not unusually sensitive to critique--in the last six months, my Smallville fic A Handful of Dust was cut into tiny pieces publicly and privately on two messageboards that I know of, one mailing list discussion, and at least three Livejournal discussions on points of plot, characterization, and whether or not it's 'good' fanfic or, in fact, legitimate Smallville fanfic at all. I have a folder of emails telling me exactly what was wrong with it in terms of pacing, plotting, etc, along with the positive stuff. The Wasteland comes second with the debates over my choice of narrative style, characterization, and plotline and of all Godforsaken arguments, the use of present tense for the narrative. However, except in one case, my integrity as a writer and my character were never questioned, only my ability to translate my vision to the page well enough for others to follow, so all these discussions were not only enlightening, but highly entertaining. And even in that case, I take it as a reflection of my ability to tell a story and a really bad day, not as a personal attack on me. At least, I do now.

Did I ever get flamed in movieverse? Nope. I did what anyone with any kind of sense did--I posted to movieverse only lists and avoided any board where I thought a comicverse person might dwell. I didn't go within a mile of ff.net until the movieverse section started and I posted there only after I was absolutely sure it was relatively safe from random superiorist flamers with some uncontrollable need to show off their wonderous talents at insult. I'm on OTL, but I've never been the least bit tempted to post either my movieverse or Smallville fic there.

I can't speak for all movieverse writers, all L/R writers, or even most, but I can speak for myself and that's what it boils down to. That's, for me, pretty much where the knee-jerk comes from.

Though honestly, I'd never call myself a martyr. I'm just not that passive.

jenn

From:

alara-r.livejournal.com

No one on OTL has *ever* been flamed for writing movieverse. We have had flames for what people perceived as really insensitive portrayal of rape, we have had snarks for people writing and rewriting the exact same story over and over and never finishing it, we have had biting words for those who post in HTML or post more than 100K a day... but no one has *ever* been flamed for their choice of which X-Men universe to write in.

Hell, we get snarked at for writing X-Men at all (eg the usual "But Johnny X-Zombie doesn't know or care about Superman or Iron Man", ignoring the fact that 90% of X-men writers are a. female and b. read *many* comics, though they may not fic them all) by a minority of people who are upset at the prevalence of X-Men on OTL. But no one has ever, ever flamed anyone for writing movieverse. Hell, a good friend of mine wrote Wolverine/Jubilee erotica, after appropriately aging Jubilee, and *she* never got flamed despite the fact that comicverse Jubilee is *well* established to view Wolvie as a big brother/uncle/father figure.

So by not posting to OTL because you were afraid you *might* get flamed, you lost out on a possible good source of feedback and fan interest. And calling that common sense is just silly (unless you were being sarcastic...)

I tell you what. *Post* "Jus Ad Bellum" to OTL. They'll love it. (As long as you break it up into less than 100K a day.) I advertised the story on Feedback City (I think I might have cc'd that to you) to encourage people to go find it and read it, but who knows if they did? Post it there. And then you'll be a Well Known Name who Writes Good Fic and people will read your stuff even if their knee-jerk reaction is that probably L/R isn't any good, because you'd have already proved otherwise.

If you don't, well, that's your choice, but you're missing out on a large section of potential fans who would really enjoy your work, many of whom would probably tell you so, because of a knee-jerk reaction based on a perception of comicverse fans, and OTL, that is, in fact, flat out wrong.