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alias_sqbrI keep almost making comments to reply to people making the argument in the subject of this post but then stopping when I realise they've gotten tl;dr and personal. Thus, a post. Warning: tl;dr and personal!
Most people are talking about fanfic but since I mostly make comics, that's what I'm mostly talking about (EDIT: See also All things to everyone about how if the standards you set don't make sense for fanart you're not being very helpful). And this is most definitely a way of me venting my irrational defensiveness. There are some genuine criticisms mixed in there too, but at the moment I'm not feeling objective enough to ferret them out!
My problem with this argument:
Not everyone who make a work feels certain if it's a fanwork or not, or even necessarily cares that much until they have to ask themselves "Is it ok to post this to the AO3?" or whatever. I realise people don't mean it that way, and I'm not sure how much of this is irrational defensiveness, but whenever anyone says "Well, as long as it feels like fanfic and was made for a fannish community" I don't feel more included but less.
Really important point: I have no better way of deciding what goes into the archive, or what counts as fanfic or whatever. But like I said in my previous post, I don't like it when people act like they can make these generalisations and suddenly everything is simple and clear and noone is excluded or confused. Also: I do not mean to exclude the people who say "it's fanfic if you say it is and it feels like fanfic" because they feel excluded by other definitions (including the ones that suit my stuff better) Really what bugs me is the implication that "it's fanfic if and only if you say it is and it feels like fanfic".
People say "Well, did you make it for a fannish community?" but with the odd exception (challenges etc) that's not how I work. I'm inspired to make something, and once it's done I decide where to post it (if at all) Mostly I promote things on my lj and aim things in the vague direction of "the people likely to see this", which is a mix of non-fanworks fandom sf fans, fanworks fandom people, and others who aren't that fannish at all(*). In the last year or so I've also started posting things to DeviantArt and AO3 based on whether or not I think the (mostly fannish) audiences there would be interested in the work. (Admittedly, my recent spate of Dragon Age fanworks are an exception to this, but that's a special case)
Some examples of transformative or fannish comics I haven't posted to AO3 partly because I'm not sure if they count (plus, admittedly, because they're not my best stuff):
Inspired by general spec fic fan cliches about ninjas
Exercise from "Making Comics" to make a fancomic retelling of a movie (I also have a fancomic of "Making Comics")
Anime influenced comic about a friend, inspired by an Anime con
Comic based on a music album aimed mostly at mutual friends and people who like Radiohead
Real life journal comic inspired by a fancomic about fanfic, and aimed at fanfic fandom, but also people who know me and my husband
This comic was made before I really liked fanfic in part to mock my friends who did...but is unambiguously a fancomic. Once I got into fanworks fandom I posted it to a Harry Potter comics community (and was not flamed!)
Some of these were made before I even started identifying as being in fanworks fandom. And I'm totally ok with them not counting...but the thing is, if we're talking about feeling, well, a lot of the stuff I have or am likely to post to AO3 doesn't feel all that much more fannish to me, it's just that I'm less worried someone will look at it and go "But that's not the sort of thing people should post here!". And if you say "Welll, you're fannish, and they're made in a fannish context, so it's ok" then have a look through the rest of my comics journal, some of those are definitely not fannish, but there's no neat dividing line, either as a reader or as a creator. I don't think it would be fair for me to post ALL my comics on the AO3, so where do I draw the line?
And even with unambiguous fanworks it's not that simple. Some of my fanworks are very much "Other people have been making stuff like this in this fandom, and I am inspired to make something similar, and it helps to know people will be interested". But others are made specifically to be different to what everyone else is making, eg when writing my Jane Austen fic I try to be influenced by other Jane Austen fic and Regency Romances as little as possible.
Avatar minus Jake Sully is aimed at people who think Avatar is a terrible movie. I have zero interest in or connection to Avatar fandom, and this was as popular with my non-fanworks-fandom friends as anyone else. If all I made was parodies like this (and when I was younger, that's the form much of my fannish creativity took), would I count as a "fan"?
I guess why I feel so defensive is that while most people in this conversation using this argument are trying to be more inclusive, I've encountered so much "Fanfic feels like X, and anything that doesn't feel like X is crap and bad and boring and should go away" in the past it's a bit of a sore point. It's one of the things that put me off writing fic for years, and it's only by convincing myself that even if people in the lj/metafandom/AO3-ish part of fanworks fandom I seem to have found myself in prefer romance and porn and squee to exposition and gen and satire I can still participate since what I'm making is fanfic/fanart by definition of being art/writing which is based on someone else's canon, even if it's of a less popular type(***). Once people start including "..and it fits fannish norms" in the definition I get very uncomfortable.
Of course there are parts of fanworks fandom where exposition, gen, and satire etc are the norm, and thus my work fits "fannish norms" in the broader sense as much as anyone else's. But they're not the bits I mostly hang out in, or at least not the bits that write most of the meta I come across, so it doesn't always feel that way.
Phew. I feel MUCH better now. Even though this is very introspective I'm leaving it unlocked just in case I ever need to say "Here are my thoughts in brief, but if you want a longer version...".
(***)And in fact my satirical gen is much more popular in the lj/metafandom/AO3-ish part of fanworks fandom than my schmoopy het, so there you go. This is about feelings not facts :)
Most people are talking about fanfic but since I mostly make comics, that's what I'm mostly talking about (EDIT: See also All things to everyone about how if the standards you set don't make sense for fanart you're not being very helpful). And this is most definitely a way of me venting my irrational defensiveness. There are some genuine criticisms mixed in there too, but at the moment I'm not feeling objective enough to ferret them out!
My problem with this argument:
Not everyone who make a work feels certain if it's a fanwork or not, or even necessarily cares that much until they have to ask themselves "Is it ok to post this to the AO3?" or whatever. I realise people don't mean it that way, and I'm not sure how much of this is irrational defensiveness, but whenever anyone says "Well, as long as it feels like fanfic and was made for a fannish community" I don't feel more included but less.
Really important point: I have no better way of deciding what goes into the archive, or what counts as fanfic or whatever. But like I said in my previous post, I don't like it when people act like they can make these generalisations and suddenly everything is simple and clear and noone is excluded or confused. Also: I do not mean to exclude the people who say "it's fanfic if you say it is and it feels like fanfic" because they feel excluded by other definitions (including the ones that suit my stuff better) Really what bugs me is the implication that "it's fanfic if and only if you say it is and it feels like fanfic".
People say "Well, did you make it for a fannish community?" but with the odd exception (challenges etc) that's not how I work. I'm inspired to make something, and once it's done I decide where to post it (if at all) Mostly I promote things on my lj and aim things in the vague direction of "the people likely to see this", which is a mix of non-fanworks fandom sf fans, fanworks fandom people, and others who aren't that fannish at all(*). In the last year or so I've also started posting things to DeviantArt and AO3 based on whether or not I think the (mostly fannish) audiences there would be interested in the work. (Admittedly, my recent spate of Dragon Age fanworks are an exception to this, but that's a special case)
Some examples of transformative or fannish comics I haven't posted to AO3 partly because I'm not sure if they count (plus, admittedly, because they're not my best stuff):
Inspired by general spec fic fan cliches about ninjas
Exercise from "Making Comics" to make a fancomic retelling of a movie (I also have a fancomic of "Making Comics")
Anime influenced comic about a friend, inspired by an Anime con
Comic based on a music album aimed mostly at mutual friends and people who like Radiohead
Real life journal comic inspired by a fancomic about fanfic, and aimed at fanfic fandom, but also people who know me and my husband
This comic was made before I really liked fanfic in part to mock my friends who did...but is unambiguously a fancomic. Once I got into fanworks fandom I posted it to a Harry Potter comics community (and was not flamed!)
Some of these were made before I even started identifying as being in fanworks fandom. And I'm totally ok with them not counting...but the thing is, if we're talking about feeling, well, a lot of the stuff I have or am likely to post to AO3 doesn't feel all that much more fannish to me, it's just that I'm less worried someone will look at it and go "But that's not the sort of thing people should post here!". And if you say "Welll, you're fannish, and they're made in a fannish context, so it's ok" then have a look through the rest of my comics journal, some of those are definitely not fannish, but there's no neat dividing line, either as a reader or as a creator. I don't think it would be fair for me to post ALL my comics on the AO3, so where do I draw the line?
And even with unambiguous fanworks it's not that simple. Some of my fanworks are very much "Other people have been making stuff like this in this fandom, and I am inspired to make something similar, and it helps to know people will be interested". But others are made specifically to be different to what everyone else is making, eg when writing my Jane Austen fic I try to be influenced by other Jane Austen fic and Regency Romances as little as possible.
Avatar minus Jake Sully is aimed at people who think Avatar is a terrible movie. I have zero interest in or connection to Avatar fandom, and this was as popular with my non-fanworks-fandom friends as anyone else. If all I made was parodies like this (and when I was younger, that's the form much of my fannish creativity took), would I count as a "fan"?
I guess why I feel so defensive is that while most people in this conversation using this argument are trying to be more inclusive, I've encountered so much "Fanfic feels like X, and anything that doesn't feel like X is crap and bad and boring and should go away" in the past it's a bit of a sore point. It's one of the things that put me off writing fic for years, and it's only by convincing myself that even if people in the lj/metafandom/AO3-ish part of fanworks fandom I seem to have found myself in prefer romance and porn and squee to exposition and gen and satire I can still participate since what I'm making is fanfic/fanart by definition of being art/writing which is based on someone else's canon, even if it's of a less popular type(***). Once people start including "..and it fits fannish norms" in the definition I get very uncomfortable.
Of course there are parts of fanworks fandom where exposition, gen, and satire etc are the norm, and thus my work fits "fannish norms" in the broader sense as much as anyone else's. But they're not the bits I mostly hang out in, or at least not the bits that write most of the meta I come across, so it doesn't always feel that way.
Phew. I feel MUCH better now. Even though this is very introspective I'm leaving it unlocked just in case I ever need to say "Here are my thoughts in brief, but if you want a longer version...".
(***)And in fact my satirical gen is much more popular in the lj/metafandom/AO3-ish part of fanworks fandom than my schmoopy het, so there you go. This is about feelings not facts :)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-13 10:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-13 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-13 12:05 pm (UTC)About the list, except the fourth, or perhaps even including it, all of them would be shoo in for being considered fanworks for me, particularly if posted to the AO3. I think context is very important to me to consider what is a fanwork and what is not. Context of creation is not possible to know always, but context of posting/sharing is (that is, it's self evident); unless someone is trying to game the system (that is, that someone goes, 'hehehe, I'll use the webspace of this entirely fannish project for my obviously non-fannish--that I believe to be non-fannish--things taking advantage that they consider context the most important thing'), it should be the most reliable rule that won't exclude anyone (another would be a list of stuff potentially considered a fanwork by the archive, but that will mean that someone will be excluded; unless the list gets revised by incoming feedback, like the language list, and in that case it may work?). (Also, the ones about fandom people feel like the wranglers' universe that is being posted, or even that history of the creation of the AO3 told with pictures.)
And I'll now post and hope this is understandable. O_O
no subject
Date: 2010-04-13 02:00 pm (UTC)I'm DEEPLY AMBIVALENT about what does and doesn't count on that list. I'm certainly hoping they define what they mean by "original art". But if it was possible to make the archive open to anything whose creator identified it as a fanwork and there wasn't horrible consequences like a bazillion people using it to host pictures of their cat or whatever then I certainly wouldn't object, because it does seem impossible to define things in any useful way.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-17 02:47 am (UTC)For very sound reasons, I'd expect.
An LJ icon can use the same system resources as a 7000 word story. A single original picture (or comparative bit of fanart) takes the same server space as a 45,000 word story.
Many artists have a *lot* more pictures of that size than authors have 45k word stories. It's not unusual for an artist to have a couple hundred pieces--especially if they want to post sketches as well as finished pieces.
And I want those sketches, if they're fanart. Even remotely fanart. But I can see them wanting to say, "umm... no, this is not deviantart; we don't have that kind of storage space." Also, since AO3 is not planning on having a no-nc-17 policy for art (
Strikethroughandboldthroughhaving been strong motivators for getting the archive going), they need to say, "you cannot host your non-fannish pornpics here!"Photos of fans dressed up as Xena & Gabrielle, enacting the hot scene in a fic: Great. Photos of two random women in medieval-esque bondage gear for straightman porn mag: not so great.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-17 03:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-17 12:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-17 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-15 10:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 05:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 04:14 pm (UTC)So...I don't know! But I'm glad you posted this.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 03:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 04:22 pm (UTC)