![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Fanfic + SF/F rant
It feels like I'm increasingly seeing posts that are like "a bold and daring thought: what if genre fiction actually is a lesser art form" and "fanfic really is cringe and shallow in a way original, or at least literary, fiction definitionally isn't, as a natural byproduct of the form."
I have many complaints about fandom trends, both generally and specific to certain fandoms. I have always had lots of complaints about these. But I hate this. I hate the snide, snappy versions of this especially, but I also hate the more earnest arguments about how this just naturally arises from the existence of magic or spaceships or the re-purposing of pre-existing characters. I hate the attempts to pass off nostalgia for ye olde SF/F + handwringing over the corruption of the youth/womenfolk/etc as somehow progressive. I hate framing the most absolutely conventionally pretentious arguments about why less "respectable" genres really truly deserve to be disrespected as revolutionary.
There are deeply ahistorical and short-sighted elements to this that I've ranted about before (most recently with regard to fanfic here), and trying to additionally suggest these ideas are dangerous and transgressive and simultaneously so obvious as to be above criticism is so nonsensical. If you want to talk in sweeping generalizations about how SF/F is trash and fanfic is trash, you can do that, but the demand to be welcomed for doing so in fandom spaces and that the entirely predictable result of people getting annoyed just shows how right you are and how defensive fandom is about their unsophisticated tastes is just raw entitlement and elitism. Upsetting people is not a vindication of your position.
Now, people have always made this argument in fandom, and in SF/F circles, too. I personally cannot remember a time when there weren't people writing SF/F that was extremely identifiable as such while denying that it was SF/F at all, because by their own estimation, they're too good or too distinctive for SF/F. But it's pervading more and more of what I see in a fandom context and it's just ... ugh.
It's especially grating with regard to fanfic, which is already a shorthand for "trashy" for a lot of people in a way that SF/F had somewhat clawed past. And it's still more annoying when the argument doesn't seem to even get fanfic at a very basic level. Yes, I am frequently annoyed by the way that fandoms get overrun by fanon and modern USA settings and shipping that becomes progressively more and more detached from anything particular to the characters. But I am way more annoyed with these very respectability-tinged arguments about the evils of fanfic not doing exactly what its canon did or not exactly sharing the priorities of its canon or not fixing its canon (often when it's SF/F!) or whatever.
Fanfic has often had a reputation (largely among people outside fandom) for arising out of desire to just have more of whatever its source material was doing. But that has very rarely been my experience of what fans are getting out of fanfic, as either writers or their audience. Fanfic is overwhelmingly about poking at things that are in some way not in the canon. This might be a relationship (not necessarily romantic) you find fun to think about, but it didn't happen in canon, or wasn't a focal point because of genre or not involving the protagonists or whatnot. It might be a relationship that was a focal point in canon, but there's a lot the source just didn't get into out of time or plot constraints or whatever. It might be that you're curious about what would have resulted from some change that might have occurred, or there's an aspect of the setting/world-building that you want to expand on in a way the original didn't, or you want to write about something to do with canon from a different perspective or in a different style. And so on. The point is generally introducing something that isn't already present in the canon (often many things) and seeing what results.
But a really frequent criticism that I've seen basically forever, but more and more recently, is that it is fundamentally problematic to have different priorities than the source material did, especially if the source dealt with something more fraught or abstract or directly political than the fandom usually does. And I've been annoyed about how fandoms handle that kind of material, but I don't actually think it's incumbent on fans to do it the way the source did, no matter how good the source is. In fact, when the source handles something like that really well as a central focus, I think it's all the more understandable that fans who approve of the canon treatment would tackle some other aspect that was less central or less developed, given that a) the canon's treatment of its subject has already been done really well by canon, and b) odds are high that almost everyone in your audience is going to be familiar with the really good canon version.
For instance: most Jyn/Cassian shippers have a high respect for how Rogue One handled the exigencies of resistance to imperialism and fascism, and matters such as the sacrifices made by our faves and their allies. There are a few fics that focus on those themes from a somewhat different angle but which are fundamentally similar to the film (and these are usually quite good!). But "writing fanfic where Jyn and Cassian and maybe even more people survive and heal and get to have good lives together" doesn't mean we don't get the film's themes or are trying to undercut those themes. A given Jyn/Cassian fic might do so, sure (I've read some that were very dissatisfying for that reason!), but by and large, Rogue One fanfics are in conversation with Rogue One, not trying to replicate or compete with Rogue One. The consolation of a good Jyn and Cassian Survive and Get To Be Happy Together fic is partly derived from the very fact that this did not happen in Rogue One.
Sometimes you'll encounter a Jyn/Cassian fic that is actively antagonistic towards Rogue One (I have read these!) or which is deeply antithetical to the themes of Rogue One (I have also encountered these!). But that kind of thing is actually rather rare IMO. A much more common annoyance is Jyn/Cassian fic that has nothing to do with Rogue One at all, even in terms of peripheral elements or differing interpretations or re-imaginings or whatnot. The problem with a fic like that isn't that it's a bad story, but that no matter how good the story is in itself, it's not really working as fanfic. If I wanted to read original fic, I could simply do that.
And part of my annoyance with these sweeping dismissals of fanfic for not being perfect extensions of their canons (something very little fanfic ever attempts or desires to be) is that it flattens the distinctions between fans focusing on something the source material didn't (world-building for the Ring of Kafrene, say), fans taking an essentially combative position towards the source material ("maybe fighting imperialism is morally equivalent to imperialism"), and fans disengaging from the source material altogether. And any or all of these things can happen in different parts or aspects of any individual fic. The easy conflation of them into one thing makes it fairly difficult to have any meaningful conversation about, say, actively anti-revolutionary trends in Rogue One fic if any and all fic that is not Rogue One 2.0 is defined as fundamentally "not getting it."
That's just an example of fic for one ship in one film in one fandom, but I've seen so many of these kinds of reductive sweeping dismissals of fanfic and SF/F broadly that make it only more difficult to discuss these kinds of things with any nuance beyond good vs bad. But it's doubly annoying that these dismissals get presented as genuinely groundbreaking and transgressive and not the same over-simplified, stale arguments that the literary crowd has been making since before Lord of the Rings was a glimmer in Tolkien's eye.
I have many complaints about fandom trends, both generally and specific to certain fandoms. I have always had lots of complaints about these. But I hate this. I hate the snide, snappy versions of this especially, but I also hate the more earnest arguments about how this just naturally arises from the existence of magic or spaceships or the re-purposing of pre-existing characters. I hate the attempts to pass off nostalgia for ye olde SF/F + handwringing over the corruption of the youth/womenfolk/etc as somehow progressive. I hate framing the most absolutely conventionally pretentious arguments about why less "respectable" genres really truly deserve to be disrespected as revolutionary.
There are deeply ahistorical and short-sighted elements to this that I've ranted about before (most recently with regard to fanfic here), and trying to additionally suggest these ideas are dangerous and transgressive and simultaneously so obvious as to be above criticism is so nonsensical. If you want to talk in sweeping generalizations about how SF/F is trash and fanfic is trash, you can do that, but the demand to be welcomed for doing so in fandom spaces and that the entirely predictable result of people getting annoyed just shows how right you are and how defensive fandom is about their unsophisticated tastes is just raw entitlement and elitism. Upsetting people is not a vindication of your position.
Now, people have always made this argument in fandom, and in SF/F circles, too. I personally cannot remember a time when there weren't people writing SF/F that was extremely identifiable as such while denying that it was SF/F at all, because by their own estimation, they're too good or too distinctive for SF/F. But it's pervading more and more of what I see in a fandom context and it's just ... ugh.
It's especially grating with regard to fanfic, which is already a shorthand for "trashy" for a lot of people in a way that SF/F had somewhat clawed past. And it's still more annoying when the argument doesn't seem to even get fanfic at a very basic level. Yes, I am frequently annoyed by the way that fandoms get overrun by fanon and modern USA settings and shipping that becomes progressively more and more detached from anything particular to the characters. But I am way more annoyed with these very respectability-tinged arguments about the evils of fanfic not doing exactly what its canon did or not exactly sharing the priorities of its canon or not fixing its canon (often when it's SF/F!) or whatever.
Fanfic has often had a reputation (largely among people outside fandom) for arising out of desire to just have more of whatever its source material was doing. But that has very rarely been my experience of what fans are getting out of fanfic, as either writers or their audience. Fanfic is overwhelmingly about poking at things that are in some way not in the canon. This might be a relationship (not necessarily romantic) you find fun to think about, but it didn't happen in canon, or wasn't a focal point because of genre or not involving the protagonists or whatnot. It might be a relationship that was a focal point in canon, but there's a lot the source just didn't get into out of time or plot constraints or whatever. It might be that you're curious about what would have resulted from some change that might have occurred, or there's an aspect of the setting/world-building that you want to expand on in a way the original didn't, or you want to write about something to do with canon from a different perspective or in a different style. And so on. The point is generally introducing something that isn't already present in the canon (often many things) and seeing what results.
But a really frequent criticism that I've seen basically forever, but more and more recently, is that it is fundamentally problematic to have different priorities than the source material did, especially if the source dealt with something more fraught or abstract or directly political than the fandom usually does. And I've been annoyed about how fandoms handle that kind of material, but I don't actually think it's incumbent on fans to do it the way the source did, no matter how good the source is. In fact, when the source handles something like that really well as a central focus, I think it's all the more understandable that fans who approve of the canon treatment would tackle some other aspect that was less central or less developed, given that a) the canon's treatment of its subject has already been done really well by canon, and b) odds are high that almost everyone in your audience is going to be familiar with the really good canon version.
For instance: most Jyn/Cassian shippers have a high respect for how Rogue One handled the exigencies of resistance to imperialism and fascism, and matters such as the sacrifices made by our faves and their allies. There are a few fics that focus on those themes from a somewhat different angle but which are fundamentally similar to the film (and these are usually quite good!). But "writing fanfic where Jyn and Cassian and maybe even more people survive and heal and get to have good lives together" doesn't mean we don't get the film's themes or are trying to undercut those themes. A given Jyn/Cassian fic might do so, sure (I've read some that were very dissatisfying for that reason!), but by and large, Rogue One fanfics are in conversation with Rogue One, not trying to replicate or compete with Rogue One. The consolation of a good Jyn and Cassian Survive and Get To Be Happy Together fic is partly derived from the very fact that this did not happen in Rogue One.
Sometimes you'll encounter a Jyn/Cassian fic that is actively antagonistic towards Rogue One (I have read these!) or which is deeply antithetical to the themes of Rogue One (I have also encountered these!). But that kind of thing is actually rather rare IMO. A much more common annoyance is Jyn/Cassian fic that has nothing to do with Rogue One at all, even in terms of peripheral elements or differing interpretations or re-imaginings or whatnot. The problem with a fic like that isn't that it's a bad story, but that no matter how good the story is in itself, it's not really working as fanfic. If I wanted to read original fic, I could simply do that.
And part of my annoyance with these sweeping dismissals of fanfic for not being perfect extensions of their canons (something very little fanfic ever attempts or desires to be) is that it flattens the distinctions between fans focusing on something the source material didn't (world-building for the Ring of Kafrene, say), fans taking an essentially combative position towards the source material ("maybe fighting imperialism is morally equivalent to imperialism"), and fans disengaging from the source material altogether. And any or all of these things can happen in different parts or aspects of any individual fic. The easy conflation of them into one thing makes it fairly difficult to have any meaningful conversation about, say, actively anti-revolutionary trends in Rogue One fic if any and all fic that is not Rogue One 2.0 is defined as fundamentally "not getting it."
That's just an example of fic for one ship in one film in one fandom, but I've seen so many of these kinds of reductive sweeping dismissals of fanfic and SF/F broadly that make it only more difficult to discuss these kinds of things with any nuance beyond good vs bad. But it's doubly annoying that these dismissals get presented as genuinely groundbreaking and transgressive and not the same over-simplified, stale arguments that the literary crowd has been making since before Lord of the Rings was a glimmer in Tolkien's eye.
no subject
Exactly, lol. There's a point where it's just like ... please, we're all cringe here. Some of us are at least capable of having fun, though.