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: Because there's a difference between "this is crap" and "I don't like it."

[alara-r.livejournal.com]

Well, to be specific, what Nine Inch Nails does *is* music, not random noise. (I am not my brother. My brother is capable of believing that random noise is great experimental music. I need to have a definable melodic line.) You can sing Trent Reznor's songs, they have lyrics (when they have lyrics-- some of his stuff is instrumental) which make sense and communicate a definite mood which is generally synchronized with the music chosen. So by any definition of "music", yes, it's music. You can't declare that it is "bad" music unless you are a musical expert (which you are, but I get the impression you've never heard NIN, since you're talking about the sounds of buses farting and stuff, which isn't descriptive at all of NIN's stuff.) You can say "I don't like it," but many of the traits we might ascribe to "bad" music-- ie, it's overly derivative, it communicates banal sentiments, the lyrics are badly written, it has no recognizable melodic line, the lead singer cannot carry a tune if you gave him a bucket to do it with, it's not recognizably "music" in any real sense-- are not applicable.

And yeah, if someone says "Movieverse sucks," that *is* probably what they mean. Unlike peanut butter, however, real people who are probably reading what you write and may be friends with your friends have emotional energy invested in Movieverse. I personally get a little hurt when people say "Star Trek fic sucks", and I'm *good* at shrugging things off, particularly with my writing. So saying "movieverse sucks" is a good shorthand way to piss people off while *trying* to convey the idea that it's not to your taste.

Unless, of course, you actually mean, "I read several dozen movieverse stories and 90% of them were very badly written, with poor punctuation, no grasp of movie characterization, egregious Mary Sues, slash with improbable positions and too many weepyfests from men, Rogue consistently spelled Rouge and Magneto acting like a maniacal mustache twirling EEEEEEVIL villain when the movie portrayed him as just misguided." If that's what you saw, then people pointing out the existence of well-written movieverse fic refutes the thesis. If it's just that it's not to your *taste*, you should say so. People's writing is not Jif.

Re: Because there's a difference between "this is crap" and "I don't like it."

[mitai.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have heard NIN, and I was using John Cage as an example because I don't really remember enough NIN to comment. I recall more Weird Al's rendition of a popular NIN song than the actual song itself. =) As to NIN in definition, what he does isn't that new. It was done in the 70s. All the 'new' punk, factory, rock, and industrial music is doing nothing that hasn't been done before.

Whereas John Cage actually did, so that is why I chose him.

However, one can argue that NIN music just sucks. So you understand the lyrics and think the melody contributes to the words - what if I don't? Then the music sucks for me. So I can say "NIN sucks," and be right.

We're seeing the other's point, just disagreeing, so I'll leave it at that. =)

I'm not too happy when people say "Classical music sucks," but it's something that I don't resent people for. If you don't like classical music, I'll find some that you do, and show it to you. I don't get resentful because some of my friends have no desire to come to my recitals. They don't like it, even though they've never heard the pieces I'm playing or me play at all, and that is a perfect analogy to Minisinoo. Folks who read Movieverse label the entire thing as bad, and my friends label all of classical music as bad.

And it's perfectly okay. =) I understand that some would get resentful, but I don't, and I know that if most musicians I know did, music would stop being a joy. I'm not sure if that translates over to fic or not. If you don't take what I do seriously, oh well. You're a pootie head, moving on. =) If I can forgive Matt for telling me my entire career is completely useless and offensive to him because people will pay me money to perform, I can forgive anything. =)

(Not a slam on Nute - just a reference to a conversation in IRC where the arts were discussed in terms of their true value to culture and society. He and I were not the only participants, and more than just music was discussed.)