icarusancalion

Oh, hee!

( Yes. The ostrich technigue of hiding fandom failed yet again. There were our little tail feathers sticking up, and SPN tweaked one. )

Hats off to TPTB for their respectful treatment of Chuck, and yes, respectful treatment of fandom.

Recently a gen fanfic writer wrote a anti-slash screed. (Doesn't she know that an anti-slash screed is what got me reading and writing slash in the first place, says Icarus, 150 slashfics later.)

The question came up as to whether or not we should read or rec this gen writer's stories in the future. You know, the usual, "Ew, if that's her attitude I don't want to read her." -- "Me neither."

destina had a really good post/article about this... somewhere... a very long time ago. But I can't find it. Guess I'll have to write my own.


Fanfic and the Magical Forget Ray

Because we post stories to personal networking sites, we know a lot more about fanfic writers than we once did. Instead of belonging to a list or Yahoo Group and reading fics in a vacuum, we enounter... people.

This can be good. We might like them. We might wonder why they haven't updated their WIP in ten million years -- and reading their Livejournal, we can find out why.

This can also be bad. We can learn that not only do they write gen, they also write slash (oh my). We might stumble across political beliefs we don't agree with, or an anti-slash screed (uh-oh). I know I liked Anne Rice a lot better before she had a blog.

The person who wrote this screed, well, 1) I didn't like her screed, 2) I didn't like the fact that she deleted comments who disagreed with her and left the ones she agreed with, I think that's dishonest, 3) I didn't like how she started banning people who wrote comments she disagreed with, no matter how mild (for example, "Huh. Really? I'm surprised. I think people should write what they like").

That doesn't matter. In my view at least, the personalities behind the stories are irrelevant. The stories stand by themselves. I may not like someone. I'll still read their fic. I'll still recommend it if I think it's good.

Why?

Because my own credibility will be done for as a reccer (okay, I don't rec as much as I used to, but anyway...) if my recs are swayed by my personal feelings about the authors. That is why the Oscars suck. Overblown Hollywood crap wins because the judges like the director and feel he's deserving.

It's hard to forget when someone's been an utter wanker, of course. And here I wanted to quote destina because her response was classy. (I still can't find that post.)

For myself, I use the "Magical Forget Ray."

It works a bit like the S.E.P. field* in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and looks exactly like an oversized hair dryer from the 1950s (curlers not required). You sit under this baby for about 50 seconds, and voila! What a fine new author you've discovered. Never heard of them before. All that's left behind is a vague sense of unease that causes you to never, ever, read their personal posts again.




* = Somebody Else's Problem, the most effective form of invisibility cloak.

A friend of mine got into a discussion about which of her fandoms were wankiest (I think the specimens were House, Stargate Atlantis, and Supernatural, but don't quote me on that). It got me thinking: how would you, in a fair and impartial fashion, measure the wankiness of a fandom?

I'm far too lazy (or busy) to seek the figures for a comparison of fandoms but thinking about it on the bus I did manage a formula worthy of an Excel spreadsheet.

( Quantitative Measures )

( Qualitative Measures )

( General Guiding Principle )

( A System of Classifying and Ranking Wank )

( Splashiness )

If I cared enough to do the research...

So there you have it. A method to determine the wankiness of your fandom of choice. I'm far too tired, lazy, busy (throw in "z" word of choice) to do the work of getting actual statistics. But if you're interested, drop it in Excel, plug in the numbers, and see what happens.

You might be surprised at which fandom is actually the wankier. Conventional wisdom says that the wankiest is Harry Potter. I haven't run the numbers, but I doubt it.

*tips hat*
*exits stage left*



* = Thank you, sociofemme. *roars with laughter* There may be a reason I'm not running the numbers. 1 + 3 + 4 in fact does not equal 12.