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Confessions of a Resfic Whore
Jul. 30th, 2002 12:05 pmWish fulfillment is bad. We all know it.
Wish fulfillment leads to bad characterization, bad characterization leads to barbieshipping, barbieshipping leads to intolerance, intolerance leads to hatred, and hatred leads to the Dark Side. And if you bring in Mary Sue you can get to the Dark Side a lot faster. Try it and see.
Right? Wrong.
Wish fulfillment is the beating heart of fanfic.
Because let's be honest about what we're doing. We're taking someone else's universe, and we're tweaking it to make it ours. To make it the way we want it. Otherwise, why not just sit back and watch your old episodes on the VCR? When fanfic works best, it doesn't reproduce the original. It provides a different take on it. (I really want to go all litcrit and use the word "re-present" here.) It gives the reader something new, and that new thing comes from something the author sees.
Sure, I worship at the two shrines of Canon and Characterization, at least until the word from On High starts telling me to do something I don't really want to do. That's when I remember that I'm not writing for the show. I'm writing for me. And if I want to write shameless resfic, that's what I'm going to do. If that makes me the moral equivalent of a barbieshipper, so be it.
Of course, it isn't only about wish fulfillment. A lot of the fanfic I don't care for involves people spreading their own (usually sexual) fantasies out in public. If that doesn't interest me, it's because I don't always find other people's fantasies interesting. Not because I'm doing something inherently different and better.
I write for an audience of people who share my interest in the fictional characters, but are not necessarily interested in my personal fantasies. So when I write, I take into account the tension between my desires and their desires, and between my desires and the canon characterizations. But if there wasn't something I personally wanted from the fictional universe, I wouldn't bother writing at all. Wish fulfillment.
Questions? Comments?
Wish fulfillment leads to bad characterization, bad characterization leads to barbieshipping, barbieshipping leads to intolerance, intolerance leads to hatred, and hatred leads to the Dark Side. And if you bring in Mary Sue you can get to the Dark Side a lot faster. Try it and see.
Right? Wrong.
Wish fulfillment is the beating heart of fanfic.
Because let's be honest about what we're doing. We're taking someone else's universe, and we're tweaking it to make it ours. To make it the way we want it. Otherwise, why not just sit back and watch your old episodes on the VCR? When fanfic works best, it doesn't reproduce the original. It provides a different take on it. (I really want to go all litcrit and use the word "re-present" here.) It gives the reader something new, and that new thing comes from something the author sees.
Sure, I worship at the two shrines of Canon and Characterization, at least until the word from On High starts telling me to do something I don't really want to do. That's when I remember that I'm not writing for the show. I'm writing for me. And if I want to write shameless resfic, that's what I'm going to do. If that makes me the moral equivalent of a barbieshipper, so be it.
Of course, it isn't only about wish fulfillment. A lot of the fanfic I don't care for involves people spreading their own (usually sexual) fantasies out in public. If that doesn't interest me, it's because I don't always find other people's fantasies interesting. Not because I'm doing something inherently different and better.
I write for an audience of people who share my interest in the fictional characters, but are not necessarily interested in my personal fantasies. So when I write, I take into account the tension between my desires and their desires, and between my desires and the canon characterizations. But if there wasn't something I personally wanted from the fictional universe, I wouldn't bother writing at all. Wish fulfillment.
Questions? Comments?
