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(no subject)
I don't read much fanfic anyway, and I'd certainly never read it before I started writing myself for fear of contamination. So I'm not going to troll the Pit to find out if someone has ever quoted Nietzsche (god what a name) with respect to Hellsing. But "She who fights with monsters should take care that she herself does not become a monster" fits rather too well, given the other meaning of 'with'. Half a manga is still not much of a basis, but I'm hoping to see more hot moral temptation from A la Kaado. Don't bother telling me if it doesn't happen; I shall find out soon enough. When I finish marathoning Blue Seed.
Actually I can't understand how anyone who writes in a fandom manages to read in it and still retain the urge to write. There's all your best ideas done by other people. Whether they're done wrong or right makes no difference to me: the sands have been tromped on and churned up by others, and I don't want to lie down there. It's different if they're Japanese others, because their language has no effect on mine, and once upon a time at least their takes were so far from my take as to be inspirational. But in English-- no. I require virgin fandoms; and if they aren't, well, I can be happy if the general camp, the BNFs and all, have written reams about her, so I have nothing known. Is why I don't read much fanfic.
I recall quite clearly arguing the other side of this with someone once long ago. 'Doesn't the awful fic make you want to show how it can be done right?' I asked her. She said No, and now I agree with her. It might be different if more fics were the eye-opening kind that do... well, something new and useful, to cite the old standard, and so make me want to do it myself. Very few are that. Most fall somewhere between mediocre and respectable and that, even more than bad fic, seems to be what makes me lose my creative hard-on. My writer's urges are of a Princess and the Pea sensitivity-- it takes nothing to send them sulking into a cave. They went into eclipse the other day merely from me opening the Y-con anthology at random and finding the line 'If a man layeth with a beast it is an abomination.' Jesus wept, I said, and went to bed an hour earlier than usual.
Actually I can't understand how anyone who writes in a fandom manages to read in it and still retain the urge to write. There's all your best ideas done by other people. Whether they're done wrong or right makes no difference to me: the sands have been tromped on and churned up by others, and I don't want to lie down there. It's different if they're Japanese others, because their language has no effect on mine, and once upon a time at least their takes were so far from my take as to be inspirational. But in English-- no. I require virgin fandoms; and if they aren't, well, I can be happy if the general camp, the BNFs and all, have written reams about her, so I have nothing known. Is why I don't read much fanfic.
I recall quite clearly arguing the other side of this with someone once long ago. 'Doesn't the awful fic make you want to show how it can be done right?' I asked her. She said No, and now I agree with her. It might be different if more fics were the eye-opening kind that do... well, something new and useful, to cite the old standard, and so make me want to do it myself. Very few are that. Most fall somewhere between mediocre and respectable and that, even more than bad fic, seems to be what makes me lose my creative hard-on. My writer's urges are of a Princess and the Pea sensitivity-- it takes nothing to send them sulking into a cave. They went into eclipse the other day merely from me opening the Y-con anthology at random and finding the line 'If a man layeth with a beast it is an abomination.' Jesus wept, I said, and went to bed an hour earlier than usual.
no subject
True, one woman's obvious can be another woman's off the wall. That said, the same-old-same-old is usually a) the obvious and b) what pushes my buttons- and everyone else's, of course. Which is why I want to be There First. Hakkai and Gojou are very comforting as an idea even after everyone else has written them; but now I can no longer write them because everything has been said.
From this comes the easy descent into Mannerism/ the outre: odd angles, shocking subjects, kinky twists, on-crack what-ifs: stuff that takes you farther and farther away from the canon characters. It's an inevitable progression in a large active fandom. Never mind HP- the Potterfen's mothers did it all with B7 and Pros.
The unexplored patches do exist, but I think should be explored only by people whose minds naturally take them there (looking pointedly at Greer.) If I were to go searching for them, chances are I'd merely wind up being clever. Sincerity is all: one must feel a gut need to write the thing. Unless you're a
Nabokovianhead writer by nature; but that's another ball game.