Posts From The Desert - MOVIEVERSE

[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.

Comments

Re: Part I

[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. =)

Re: Part I

[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.