In a message dated 2/15/01 3:33:51 PM Eastern Standard Time, N.Faulkner@tesco.net writes:
<< We might be talking at cross-purposes here. The forces of attraction and repulsion that I was blithering on are not those between characters in the show, but between the viewer and the show itself. For instance, I am attracted to B7 by the setting and general ethos and (yes) the characters, but repelled by the cheap sets and costumes and special effects. Pulled one way, pushed the other, I find myself caught in the middle and thus have to resolve the tension by seizing control of B7 and turning it into the series I think it should have been.<<
Nah. I just think viewers who come to love a show choose to ignore the stuff they don't like about it. You can tell; when you're first trying to introduce someone to this show you've been raving about, you squirm uncomfortably at the bad special effects and other things that you don't want them to notice.
Of course, a viewer might be attracted by some on-screen relationships that
work in the way s/he appreciates, but repelled by others that are considered mishandled, and this too would generate the tension that generates fannishness.<<
Fans don't write fanfic about characters and plot elements they feel were 'mishandled'. You seldom see much of that. Again, I feel it's simply ignored.
Leah
Leah wrote:
Fans don't write fanfic about characters and plot elements they feel were 'mishandled'. You seldom see much of that. Again, I feel it's simply ignored.
I don't think it's so much that fans write about stuff they feel is "mishandled" (although I think there is at least in some fanfic an element of "No, here's how *I* would have done it!"). I think it's more that there are a lot of gaps left unexplored in the show, a lot of possibilities that were hinted at but not a whole lot was done with, a lot of interesting stuff that was never fully developed. So you want to leap in and fill in the gaps. I think that's the sort of think Jenkins was talking about, too.
From: Bizarro7@aol.com
Fans don't write fanfic about characters and plot elements they feel were 'mishandled'. You seldom see much of that. Again, I feel it's simply
ignored.
Like, say, the Orbit shuttle? Or the cellar scene in Rumours? Or Avon's final showdown with Blake? If fans were content with the way these things were handled, then scenes like this wouldn't be rewritten over and over again. The AU subgenre of fanfic implies a viewer dissatisfaction with the way things worked out on screen, which can be considered (though not in all cases, perhaps) with a feeling that certain moments *were* mishandled by the script writers, and that their errors can be 'corrected' through fanfic.
Some AUs, I freely grant, are nothing more than a jolly game of 'what if', but I do think there is a genuine remedial intent underlying some of the more frequently reworked incidents.
Neil
Neil said:
Some AUs, I freely grant, are nothing more than a jolly game of 'what if', but I do think there is a genuine remedial intent underlying some of the more frequently reworked incidents.
Err, of course I shouldn't mention it, but...for a story written with a clearly remedial intent, referring to Shadow (an episode that has been discussed here lately), see "A Place of Greater Safety," on Shirley Jacob's Classic SciFi & Cult TV site (http:..www.ess-jay.org.uk/scifi). Unlike many stories by the same author, this one is G-rated and family-friendly (literally, this time).
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Betty Ragan -
Bizarro7＠aol.com -
Dana Shilling -
Neil Faulkner