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

[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