Posts From The Desert - MOVIEVERSE
Oct. 27th, 2002 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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.
Re: Oh, you *knew* I'd reply to this one.... (part the second)
Date: 2002-10-29 08:06 am (UTC)I overquoted. My fault. *g*
I believe the current estimate for Jubilee's canonical age is "Heaven only knows because we sure don't." ;)
Ah, one of those Jossian "I suck at math" kind of things huh? Just go with it, and don't ask. *g*
I think some people can't see the guardian/mentor/parent-figure relationship changing far enough either in Logan's eyes to permit attraction or in the girl's eyes (whichever one she is) to make it possible to act on attraction without taking advantage.
And I completely understand that. That's a valid qualm to have. And good writers will address it in a serious story (in a fluffy PWP, not so much, but those are labeled and easy to avoid).
I imagine others are disturbed by the idea of perceiving the potential for even an eventual romantic relationship at the points we've actually seen so far.
Again, I get that. I know many people have trouble with mentor/student sexual interaction. I personally like to explore power imbalances in relationships and how to equalize them (one reason I write so much hooker fic, I think), but I can see why people can't manage to wrap their minds around the teacher/student thing even after the younger character is aged up and the power imbalance is in the past.
I mean, Katta and I just had a discussion about my odd reactions to HP fic, in that I can't read about the kids being sexually active right now even if they're aged up in the story, because I'm picturing the 12yo actors and it squicks me mightily.
I've seen still others say that the idea of Logan getting involved with anyone is disgusting because he's so much older, which I alwaysthought was a bit silly.
Well, I made my feelings about that known. *snerk*.
Yes, Logan should trawl the graveyards for a date. I think Drusilla is older than he is, for those folks looking for an age-appropriate gf for him. *g*
The Narnia fic does sound very good. I might have to look for that one of these days.
Check out silverlake (http://www.imjustsayin.net/silverlake/).
Re: Oh, you *knew* I'd reply to this one.... (part the second)
Date: 2002-10-29 09:32 am (UTC)As for power imbalances... Mitai and I spawned an epic (still in very slow progress) because we wanted to get two characters to have conversations -- not a romance, even, just conversations! -- without anyone getting killed. Which required us first to make the more powerful character helpless and then to put him under the other's protection so she'd be obligated not to kill him.... and the results of this are where the plot came from. This is rather a different case, of course, as part of the problem was that they were on opposite sides to begin with, whereas in such imbalances as student/teacher relationships some of the problems that can arise do so on account of the fact that they're supposed to be on the SAME side....
I think that Logan does tend to be attracted to mature women, and the young girls he keeps getting associated with are... well, I won't say safe with him, because he attracts danger like nobody's business, but genuinely under his protection, that he's not going to go taking advantage of them. The obvious alternate interpretation is, I think, what a lot of people get upset about, but I don't take it. That doesn't mean I don't figure on the girls eventually growing up. *grins* I think another point of contention might be that to some who see the "protector" relationship as highly parental, it really would be difficult for it to transform to be non-platonic.
Granted, I personally rather like stories exploring assorted relationships neither romantic nor sexual, but they're hardly all I read....