Entry tags:
Mini Meta Fest
Please do not link to this post in newsletters.
Warning: As per![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blnchflr’s wishes, it’s more informal and also more straightforward than my meta usually is. PS: I hope I managed to write about the topics you people were asking about.
i “loser” canon characters who become fanon heroes (223 words)
I think the phenomenon of losers-as-fan-favourites is linked to another: heroes-as-sues. The main characters are often neither particularly interesting nor particularly nuanced, and their personalities and life don’t make it easy for the people in fandom to relate to them. So they take the character they can relate to and turn him or her into the hero they wish for.
I actually think that’s great, because it shows that while mainstream media is incapable of giving us a hero we can identify with, we manage to create these heroes for ourselves. Good examples are the fanon versions of Snape (ugly and mean teacher becomes good-looking hero who gets the guy/girl), because many people can relate to his story: bullied in school by the popular kids and hopelessly in love with someone he can’t have.
I think it’s the basis of human weaknesses that makes the loser characters so popular in fandom. We can relate to them, and we can turn them into heroes we can relate to, instead of stereotypes that mean nothing to us. Many heroes have a tragic past, that much is true, but at least to me, these tragic pasts seem either pasted-on (why would everyone bully the popular person?) or it’s so out-there that it’s hard to relate to the character’s experiences (whose parents were murdered by a megalomaniac?).
ii sex-god!draco in fanfic (248 words)
My first thought when I read this prompt was “Dear God, please don’t let me get this prompt.” Well, it didn’t work out quite that way. The reason why I felt this way: I hate the trope with a passion. I can’t even say why exactly I don’t like it, I think it might be related to the fact that I just don’t buy it when he’s characterized this way. It seems wildly OOC to me.
I felt differently before the sixth book came out, mostly because we knew hardly anything about Draco’s life before then. So when people wrote stories set in seventh year or post-Hogwarts, I could accept the fact that in all that time, Draco had a lot of sex. However, the final two books proved that he spent his time as a teenager thinking about many different things, but I doubt sex was very high on his list of priorities. And the older I get, the less interested I am in assuming that he amassed most of his sexual experience while 15 or younger.
I also think that in most cases with Draco-as-a-sex-god the story is written from the point of view of the other character, or with a focus on him/her, which means that this characterisation seems to be less about Draco the character and more about the sexual fantasies of the writer who has a crush on Draco. So thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather have fic that is IC than hot smut.
iii fannish entitlement (251 words)
“Fannish entitlement” is a term I have been hearing a lot lately. It seems to be the new “get a life”, and that’s part of the problem. It’s important to recognize that fannish entitlement a) exists and b) is a problem that has to be discussed. But it’s also important to realise that not every expression of fannish unhappiness is fannish entitlement. There’s a difference between wishing things were different and demanding things to be different. There’s a difference between wishing you had more reviews and complaining about the lack of reviews and the number of schwarzlesers.
And there’s the problem: Fans are not entitled to get anything, be it the show they long for, the amount of reviews they think they deserve or the amount of recognition they do deserve. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting those things; if there was, we’d all be entitled all the time. Wanting is not a crime, no matter how you look at it. Demanding something because you think you deserve it is the problem, because it is based on one thought: that your interests are more valid than everybody else’s.
Other people might like the show the way it is or think it’s important to discuss problems within fandom. They’re “entitled” to do their thing just as much as you are “entitled” to ignore them doing it. But once you think you have the right to a fandom in which people change their behaviour to suit your whims or tastes, you’re doing it wrong.
Warning: As per
blnchflr’s wishes, it’s more informal and also more straightforward than my meta usually is. PS: I hope I managed to write about the topics you people were asking about.i “loser” canon characters who become fanon heroes (223 words)
I think the phenomenon of losers-as-fan-favourites is linked to another: heroes-as-sues. The main characters are often neither particularly interesting nor particularly nuanced, and their personalities and life don’t make it easy for the people in fandom to relate to them. So they take the character they can relate to and turn him or her into the hero they wish for.
I actually think that’s great, because it shows that while mainstream media is incapable of giving us a hero we can identify with, we manage to create these heroes for ourselves. Good examples are the fanon versions of Snape (ugly and mean teacher becomes good-looking hero who gets the guy/girl), because many people can relate to his story: bullied in school by the popular kids and hopelessly in love with someone he can’t have.
I think it’s the basis of human weaknesses that makes the loser characters so popular in fandom. We can relate to them, and we can turn them into heroes we can relate to, instead of stereotypes that mean nothing to us. Many heroes have a tragic past, that much is true, but at least to me, these tragic pasts seem either pasted-on (why would everyone bully the popular person?) or it’s so out-there that it’s hard to relate to the character’s experiences (whose parents were murdered by a megalomaniac?).
ii sex-god!draco in fanfic (248 words)
My first thought when I read this prompt was “Dear God, please don’t let me get this prompt.” Well, it didn’t work out quite that way. The reason why I felt this way: I hate the trope with a passion. I can’t even say why exactly I don’t like it, I think it might be related to the fact that I just don’t buy it when he’s characterized this way. It seems wildly OOC to me.
I felt differently before the sixth book came out, mostly because we knew hardly anything about Draco’s life before then. So when people wrote stories set in seventh year or post-Hogwarts, I could accept the fact that in all that time, Draco had a lot of sex. However, the final two books proved that he spent his time as a teenager thinking about many different things, but I doubt sex was very high on his list of priorities. And the older I get, the less interested I am in assuming that he amassed most of his sexual experience while 15 or younger.
I also think that in most cases with Draco-as-a-sex-god the story is written from the point of view of the other character, or with a focus on him/her, which means that this characterisation seems to be less about Draco the character and more about the sexual fantasies of the writer who has a crush on Draco. So thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather have fic that is IC than hot smut.
iii fannish entitlement (251 words)
“Fannish entitlement” is a term I have been hearing a lot lately. It seems to be the new “get a life”, and that’s part of the problem. It’s important to recognize that fannish entitlement a) exists and b) is a problem that has to be discussed. But it’s also important to realise that not every expression of fannish unhappiness is fannish entitlement. There’s a difference between wishing things were different and demanding things to be different. There’s a difference between wishing you had more reviews and complaining about the lack of reviews and the number of schwarzlesers.
And there’s the problem: Fans are not entitled to get anything, be it the show they long for, the amount of reviews they think they deserve or the amount of recognition they do deserve. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting those things; if there was, we’d all be entitled all the time. Wanting is not a crime, no matter how you look at it. Demanding something because you think you deserve it is the problem, because it is based on one thought: that your interests are more valid than everybody else’s.
Other people might like the show the way it is or think it’s important to discuss problems within fandom. They’re “entitled” to do their thing just as much as you are “entitled” to ignore them doing it. But once you think you have the right to a fandom in which people change their behaviour to suit your whims or tastes, you’re doing it wrong.
no subject
How do you feel about me posting a link to your post in my journal? I'm happy to add that you don't want it pimped elsewhere, and I of course respect a no to linking altogether.
i.
I'd like to respectfully, but vehemently disagree with you there. In general, main characters are the more nuanced and readers/viewers can relate to them - that's why they are main characters, and the story worth telling to begin with.
I came at this from a different angle when I first saw the prompt (wait, was I assigned this, too? Hey, I totally am. Oh, here's me sounding out my thoughts as I go along, then), namely: How many canon losers turned fanon heroes can I think of? And I haven't thought enough, because I can't come up with that many. Snape is one, but I do think from the first book he was set up as could have gone in a different direction. I truly honestly believe JKR saw how fans responded to him, and gave him a worse fate than initially intended. I don't mean his death, but the way it turned out he apparently had no good feelings, and Dumbledore didn't give a rat's ass about him.
I'll have to think of other, good examples.
ii. I wonder how many sex-god!Draco fics I have on my recs list? I know I immediately thought of uh, one of those glitter/disco fics (gah, what's it called? Apparently it didn't make my website recs list), when seeing the prompt. I guess it depends on the interpretation, but I think my recs list feature a lot of fics where Draco is great in bed - *checks* - like Left My Heart, Sodomite, A Thousand Beautiful Things, or Transfigurations. Dude, I'm down with this trope :o)
iii.
Definitely, well put!
no subject
one of those glitter/disco fics
Damn, now I want to know which one that is. If you remember the name, could you tell me. Pretty please? Because while I don't think it's particularly IC, I like this trope.
no subject
no subject
i
In general, main characters are the more nuanced and readers/viewers can relate to them - that's why they are main characters, and the story worth telling to begin with.
I guess this might depend on the reader. I often don't like the main characters and read books for the minor characters. I don't know why. I just think many main characters are one-dimensional and I can't relate to them. Sure, we have more raw data about them, but that doesn't necessarily translate into a two-dimensional character.
ii
Heh, the examples you list were all written before the sixth book, weren't they? (I don't know Sodomite, but I read the others.)
no subject
You like embarrassing sex? If H/D still works for you, you need to read Sodomite (lol, it's from 2003; maybe it's one of those fics that no longer work)!
no subject
Ooh, yeah. *nodnod*
Re: Draco. I agree that it's very unlikely that Draco has had much sex as a teenager. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty bloody sure he's a virgin at the end of the series (not counting the epilogue ;-) ). And as to his amassing lots of experience when he is older, well, he just doesn't seem like the type. I could be wrong, but that's how I see him. So I agree with you that writing him as a sex god is pushing it, although I can still buy older!Draco as a sex god. Yet I happen to like that cliché. Odd, isn't it?
I'm not sure I agree with you that those stories seem to be more about the sexual fantasies of the author who has a crush on Draco. I haven't written fanfic, so I don't know about it from an author's point of view, but as a reader I can safely say that I don't have a crush on Draco. I feel more like his older sister than anything.
Hmm. Actually, I have no idea why I like this trope.
no subject
Not at all, everyone has a different interpretation of a character and everyone likes different plots. I like embarrassing sex scenes, maybe that's why the sex god trope is not my thing.