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dragojustineI love Fandom:
The steps of converting to bandom by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
makesomelove . I am SO ALL OVER any post that begins "Fandom is so SOCIOLOGICALLY FASCINATING" cause that's pretty much the thesis of my life right now. I think her steps are out of order, because I have just passed "confusion" and am in "irony" right now, with "secrecy" and "defensiveness" looming on the horizon. Or maybe it's me that's out of order- it wouldn't be the first time.
The comments here pretty much answer the common anti-RPF question "how would all those slashers feel if someone wrote porn about THEM?" (and that makes me laugh, cause that answer should be obvious to anyone who has explored this community so the question is ridiculous in the first place).
Chuck, and why I like it so much is the most perfect analysis of why Chuck is the best new show of the season that I've yet read.
This post is about how being a sports fan is like being a, y'know, fan. To be perfectly honest, this is one of those posts that makes me sit there with my jaw hanging open going "oh. I feel stupid now." I have never had anyone present sports to me in the language of fannishness- of community and narrative and the emotional rewards of that kind of investment. I now will never mock obsessive sports fans again. (This keeps happening. Since I started actually thinking about fandom in an intellectual way, I have had to stop looking down on the soap-opera people, the bandom people, the RPS people, and the reality television people. My firm belief that communal emotional investment is its own justification is making me disturbingly un-snobby.)
This post, about the differences in style between fanfic and original fic, is incredibly insightful. It comes from someone who is clearly willing to treat fanfic, e-published fic, and romance novels all as published writing worthy of serious analysis, which keeps me from going into defensive mode, and her eventual conclusions are just freakishly spot-on. Heh. We in fanfic "wallow in characters." I kind of love the phrasing of that.
Heroes is sucking AND blowing. At the same time. Honestly, one of their major plots just sucks (Maya). They have too many characters (how many eps did we go without Sylar?), they've put aside dynamics that I think are essential to the show (Hiro no longer seeming to need/want Ando), they're trying to create angst over characters we don't yet care about (Monica), they told the story all back-asswards (flashing back to four months ago is not inherently good if missing those pieces made us not give a damn about the story), our big bad guys are stupid (Adam's lousy security) characters are denied motivation and understandable characterization and just used as plot coupons (Haitian) and characters are denied agency and made into pawns (Mohinder), and finally, the writers refrained from laying out a clear threat and motivation and goal (No bomb, no Sylar, no "save the cheerleader") and instead tried to rely on sheer mystery and incoherency to keep people interested. FAIL!
Early in the season, Mohinder finally having some sort of agency, having his own agenda in taking down the company, was fantastic. But just when he starts to be a worthwhile character again, he is stupid and easily manipulated and seems to think that he has to be acting as someone's agent rather than keeping his own coucil and making his own decisions. They try to make him seem smart with his little layers of double-cross, but it just makes him read like an erratic pawn instead of a player.
Similarly, I was made of solid SQUEE early in the season over Molly and her two daddies. But the minute Molly ended up in the hospital bed, we never saw Matt and Mohinder in a scene together again. All of the issues and connections between them, which could have been a central emotional storyline of the season (and would certainly have beaten Nicki's angst in that role) were just abandoned.
I understand why Peter was nerfed, but his memory loss only compounds the already rather convincing impression of idiocy he gives off and anyway, he's just drastically less FUN now. I would give so much to have badass Future!Peter in the long coat back, even if he's unbalanced. Hiro is evolving in a powerful, positive direction- why can't Peter?
Everyone else has already addressed the astonishing level of suckiness in our little Latin America plot line.
Let me make a valiant attempt to lay out the good:
Adam is a FANTASTIC villain, now that they've FINALLY gotten around to revealing him.
The way Adam became that fantastic villain gives Hiro some great development and new motivations. Hiro in general rocks and if he only remembers that he needs Ando with him as a sidekick, their adventures tracking down Adam and Peter could return him to the happy-fun-enjoyable center of the show.
Noah's development in a psychotic and violent and paranoid direction was REALLY well done.
Matt Parkman's evolution is similarly fantastic. I want a dark Matt struggling to set ethical limits on his own growing powers. I WANT this.
Elle rocks my world (as does Peter tied to a chair, so thank you, new kinky writer on staff).
They have tried to maintain the brotherlove, despite the physical distance. Peter recovering his memory of Nathan, Peter carrying Nathan into the hospital... it's lovely.
Angela Petrelli is a very interesting character.
Mohinder and Sylar are going to meet up!
We finally have a threat laid out, and three disparate groups (Adam and Peter, Mohinder and company guy, and Hiro-hopefully-with-Ando-please-God) chasing it, so we finally, belatedly, have some central movement and impetus to the show again.
That took some reaching, but there definitely is good to be found here. As long as they keep weeding out the storylines we don't give a damn about (Oh god, who do I have to blow to kill off Nicki? And I don't want Micah and Monica dead, but they need to die if they can't integrate into the main story soon) and as long as they keep characters COMING TOGETHER instead of flying off on disconnected trajectories, and as long as they keep focused on the threat, it could be good.
I would like Mohinder to get some agency. I would like the Haitian to get some motivations. I would like Peter to get a clue. I would like Elle to be more of a wildcard. I want Mohinder and Sylar to have a lover's reunion and I want to see Mohinder and Matt and what kind of relationship they have now (and I don't even mean that slashy). I want Hiro to remember that he needs his sidekick. I want Noah and Sylar and Adam to keep being psycho in their own special ways. I want Angela Petrelli's rather mysterious character to become clearer. I want Peter and Nathan to actually interact. I want Matt to struggle with his dark and powerful side. I want Claire to have a point.
In short, no matter how much Volume 2 sucked, I am still fannish about this show because I think if they pruned some deadwood (and yes, I am uncomfortable about calling most of our COCs deadwood, but the fact is that they are and that is the fault of the writers) and now that all the people we care about actually have a chance of MEETING and INTERACTING and moving in some recognizably FORWARD direction, I still think there could be a fantastic Volume 3.
Oh please.
The steps of converting to bandom by
makesomelove . I am SO ALL OVER any post that begins "Fandom is so SOCIOLOGICALLY FASCINATING" cause that's pretty much the thesis of my life right now. I think her steps are out of order, because I have just passed "confusion" and am in "irony" right now, with "secrecy" and "defensiveness" looming on the horizon. Or maybe it's me that's out of order- it wouldn't be the first time. The comments here pretty much answer the common anti-RPF question "how would all those slashers feel if someone wrote porn about THEM?" (and that makes me laugh, cause that answer should be obvious to anyone who has explored this community so the question is ridiculous in the first place).
Chuck, and why I like it so much is the most perfect analysis of why Chuck is the best new show of the season that I've yet read.
This post is about how being a sports fan is like being a, y'know, fan. To be perfectly honest, this is one of those posts that makes me sit there with my jaw hanging open going "oh. I feel stupid now." I have never had anyone present sports to me in the language of fannishness- of community and narrative and the emotional rewards of that kind of investment. I now will never mock obsessive sports fans again. (This keeps happening. Since I started actually thinking about fandom in an intellectual way, I have had to stop looking down on the soap-opera people, the bandom people, the RPS people, and the reality television people. My firm belief that communal emotional investment is its own justification is making me disturbingly un-snobby.)
This post, about the differences in style between fanfic and original fic, is incredibly insightful. It comes from someone who is clearly willing to treat fanfic, e-published fic, and romance novels all as published writing worthy of serious analysis, which keeps me from going into defensive mode, and her eventual conclusions are just freakishly spot-on. Heh. We in fanfic "wallow in characters." I kind of love the phrasing of that.
Heroes is sucking AND blowing. At the same time. Honestly, one of their major plots just sucks (Maya). They have too many characters (how many eps did we go without Sylar?), they've put aside dynamics that I think are essential to the show (Hiro no longer seeming to need/want Ando), they're trying to create angst over characters we don't yet care about (Monica), they told the story all back-asswards (flashing back to four months ago is not inherently good if missing those pieces made us not give a damn about the story), our big bad guys are stupid (Adam's lousy security) characters are denied motivation and understandable characterization and just used as plot coupons (Haitian) and characters are denied agency and made into pawns (Mohinder), and finally, the writers refrained from laying out a clear threat and motivation and goal (No bomb, no Sylar, no "save the cheerleader") and instead tried to rely on sheer mystery and incoherency to keep people interested. FAIL!
Early in the season, Mohinder finally having some sort of agency, having his own agenda in taking down the company, was fantastic. But just when he starts to be a worthwhile character again, he is stupid and easily manipulated and seems to think that he has to be acting as someone's agent rather than keeping his own coucil and making his own decisions. They try to make him seem smart with his little layers of double-cross, but it just makes him read like an erratic pawn instead of a player.
Similarly, I was made of solid SQUEE early in the season over Molly and her two daddies. But the minute Molly ended up in the hospital bed, we never saw Matt and Mohinder in a scene together again. All of the issues and connections between them, which could have been a central emotional storyline of the season (and would certainly have beaten Nicki's angst in that role) were just abandoned.
I understand why Peter was nerfed, but his memory loss only compounds the already rather convincing impression of idiocy he gives off and anyway, he's just drastically less FUN now. I would give so much to have badass Future!Peter in the long coat back, even if he's unbalanced. Hiro is evolving in a powerful, positive direction- why can't Peter?
Everyone else has already addressed the astonishing level of suckiness in our little Latin America plot line.
Let me make a valiant attempt to lay out the good:
Adam is a FANTASTIC villain, now that they've FINALLY gotten around to revealing him.
The way Adam became that fantastic villain gives Hiro some great development and new motivations. Hiro in general rocks and if he only remembers that he needs Ando with him as a sidekick, their adventures tracking down Adam and Peter could return him to the happy-fun-enjoyable center of the show.
Noah's development in a psychotic and violent and paranoid direction was REALLY well done.
Matt Parkman's evolution is similarly fantastic. I want a dark Matt struggling to set ethical limits on his own growing powers. I WANT this.
Elle rocks my world (as does Peter tied to a chair, so thank you, new kinky writer on staff).
They have tried to maintain the brotherlove, despite the physical distance. Peter recovering his memory of Nathan, Peter carrying Nathan into the hospital... it's lovely.
Angela Petrelli is a very interesting character.
Mohinder and Sylar are going to meet up!
We finally have a threat laid out, and three disparate groups (Adam and Peter, Mohinder and company guy, and Hiro-hopefully-with-Ando-please-God) chasing it, so we finally, belatedly, have some central movement and impetus to the show again.
That took some reaching, but there definitely is good to be found here. As long as they keep weeding out the storylines we don't give a damn about (Oh god, who do I have to blow to kill off Nicki? And I don't want Micah and Monica dead, but they need to die if they can't integrate into the main story soon) and as long as they keep characters COMING TOGETHER instead of flying off on disconnected trajectories, and as long as they keep focused on the threat, it could be good.
I would like Mohinder to get some agency. I would like the Haitian to get some motivations. I would like Peter to get a clue. I would like Elle to be more of a wildcard. I want Mohinder and Sylar to have a lover's reunion and I want to see Mohinder and Matt and what kind of relationship they have now (and I don't even mean that slashy). I want Hiro to remember that he needs his sidekick. I want Noah and Sylar and Adam to keep being psycho in their own special ways. I want Angela Petrelli's rather mysterious character to become clearer. I want Peter and Nathan to actually interact. I want Matt to struggle with his dark and powerful side. I want Claire to have a point.
In short, no matter how much Volume 2 sucked, I am still fannish about this show because I think if they pruned some deadwood (and yes, I am uncomfortable about calling most of our COCs deadwood, but the fact is that they are and that is the fault of the writers) and now that all the people we care about actually have a chance of MEETING and INTERACTING and moving in some recognizably FORWARD direction, I still think there could be a fantastic Volume 3.
Oh please.
