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personal appeal of fanworks
Oct. 23rd, 2020 01:03 amI've been idly reflecting on what I enjoy about consuming fanworks (mostly fic and vids), and I think it could be broadly divided into two categories: 1) different standards for catharsis/tropes than original fic 2) a very meta way of analyzing/interpreting a source text.
(Also, note for any meta-fans; this isn't a well-developed theory in-as-much-as thinking while I type)
So by #1, I'm primarily thinking of how fic communities, not being bound by traditional publishing, have both whump or h/c (depending on your preferred nomenclature) and fluff as distinct genres. With fanfiction, it's perfectly fine to take what you might consider the dessert of a work and gorge on it, instead of filtering through the parts that are just window-dressing to your particular needs.
For me personally, I read a fair amount of whump/hurt-comfort/angst because sometimes I need that sort of gloom-with-catharsis to put my own emotional state into perspective.
There's also genres of fic I do not like, obviously. I'm not particularly fond of the type of misunderstandings fueled slow-burn.
#2: When you write fiction (orig fic in this context), you're creating a little pocket universe of an idea. But you also whittle away parts that are too difficult to write, you close off plot points, you bring your own biases and limitations, there's a dozen other stories you could have told that you didn't.
I think the interaction between all these potentialities and what actually ends up in the text is interesting. And then there's the interaction between reader/viewer and the source text. Readers and viewers find new interpretations as they enjoy a work.
So for any one story, we have all of these other potential ways of seeing it, and my favourite part about fanworks is when you can see those other stories and interpretations brought to the surface.
(Also, note for any meta-fans; this isn't a well-developed theory in-as-much-as thinking while I type)
So by #1, I'm primarily thinking of how fic communities, not being bound by traditional publishing, have both whump or h/c (depending on your preferred nomenclature) and fluff as distinct genres. With fanfiction, it's perfectly fine to take what you might consider the dessert of a work and gorge on it, instead of filtering through the parts that are just window-dressing to your particular needs.
For me personally, I read a fair amount of whump/hurt-comfort/angst because sometimes I need that sort of gloom-with-catharsis to put my own emotional state into perspective.
There's also genres of fic I do not like, obviously. I'm not particularly fond of the type of misunderstandings fueled slow-burn.
#2: When you write fiction (orig fic in this context), you're creating a little pocket universe of an idea. But you also whittle away parts that are too difficult to write, you close off plot points, you bring your own biases and limitations, there's a dozen other stories you could have told that you didn't.
I think the interaction between all these potentialities and what actually ends up in the text is interesting. And then there's the interaction between reader/viewer and the source text. Readers and viewers find new interpretations as they enjoy a work.
So for any one story, we have all of these other potential ways of seeing it, and my favourite part about fanworks is when you can see those other stories and interpretations brought to the surface.
