shifting horizon of expectation
Jul. 31st, 2011 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI have been reading more fic. More Stargate fic, so more of stuff I last read many years ago. And it's not quite the thing any more, not what I'm looking to read. I've been trying to pin down why.
One part? They keep discovering they're gay, and dealing with that.
I used to like that bit, I think. That whole OMG what are we doing phase.
But somewhere along the line it started being a bit blah, and now it seems to bump me out of suspension of disbelief. Which isn't quite reasonable. Not everyone figures that out about themselves.
Still, now what I'm looking for is something that assumes that of course we're gay/bisexual/whatever, and now we fall for this particular person here, and there's all this social minefield to negotiate if and when we do anything about it.
The part where they wonder if the other person really likes them is also no longer quite what I want to read. I think because it has been more than ten years of reading pairing-specified fic. They like each other, we know this, the story knows this up in the header, lets go. Except I like the yearning part, where they like each other but, and the waiting and wanting and waiting some more. So it isn't precisely that simple. It's just, some questions are, in my mind, already settled. At some point they discover they love each other, yeah, but that's not a whole story.
The whole story is trying to have a relationship and save the world and not crunch into social garbage. Politics and personal.
When reading (or watching plays) about kings then the personal is political and the love of kings can destroy kingdoms. With our little teams of world savers the same thing applies, without the awkward aristocracy bit. Their love is world changing. It's cool.
Another thing I've been realising, or noticing, is that a lot of this fic is historical now. For Stargate season one fic is set, what, fourteen years ago now? Highlander always has flashbacks, but their version of 'present day' is coming up on twenty years old. In Highlander I always liked the contrast of social attitudes between Then and Now. But that's an ever increasing factor with my old fandoms. Then is becoming another country, and they did things differently there.
As increasingly highlighted by the different attitudes to and degree of assumed knowledge about diversity in sexuality.
With Doctor Who it's somehow easier to remember that everyone's era is different, probably because stories usually have time travel involved to get there. I'm listening to an audio set in the early 80s right now, with all 80s companions, and that's a historical. It's just weirder to realise about stuff that happened after I was, you know, me, existing and thinking and all that.
But this that I am noticing about what I don't want in my Stargate fic, it kind of adds up to, I don't want 90s attitudes, 90s thought patterns, things that would have seemed obvious in the 90s. Obvious to only one set of people (fic writers) but still, clearly plausible to someone. I want the characters to have kept up with, well, me.
This would be a basic error in historical fiction. It would be treating the past as a theme park, to put 2011 British thought patterns into Ye Olde Times. So logically it's an error to want it from my fic.
... but, it's what I want. A different set of assumptions in my fic. Even when it's about guys from Before.
Partly it's just because this is like eating chocolate. I do not want milk chocolate any more.
But partly it feels like the same fix-it attitude that most often gets me wanting fic in the first place. It could be better. In this case, the past could be better. By being more like me.
... I should watch that a bit careful.
Of course the other thing is that fanfic is a big conversation, and we've had that part of the conversation, and now we can assume a lot of things already established by that part and have different and more currently interesting conversations. That part is good.
New fic about old things can have new layers.
... this is kind of what I was studying all last semester with new versions of Romeo and Juliet, new discursive contexts bring out different intentional potentials in the source text. It's somehow easier to understand in a text older than I am.
Er, possibly because it's easier to understand that when I think about it I have new thoughts.
Except I did know that when I thought about old fandom stuff I had new thoughts, sometimes.
... sometimes I just have a kind of thought groove where I'm used to these same thoughts and we get along nicely so I just go there over again. That way is cosy.
Which I guess it's why it's a bit odd to revisit stuff and find it don't fit any more. Old chair no longer cosy. Sad.
I haven't actually rewatched Stargate for ages. Now I'm wondering what I'd see if I did.
One part? They keep discovering they're gay, and dealing with that.
I used to like that bit, I think. That whole OMG what are we doing phase.
But somewhere along the line it started being a bit blah, and now it seems to bump me out of suspension of disbelief. Which isn't quite reasonable. Not everyone figures that out about themselves.
Still, now what I'm looking for is something that assumes that of course we're gay/bisexual/whatever, and now we fall for this particular person here, and there's all this social minefield to negotiate if and when we do anything about it.
The part where they wonder if the other person really likes them is also no longer quite what I want to read. I think because it has been more than ten years of reading pairing-specified fic. They like each other, we know this, the story knows this up in the header, lets go. Except I like the yearning part, where they like each other but, and the waiting and wanting and waiting some more. So it isn't precisely that simple. It's just, some questions are, in my mind, already settled. At some point they discover they love each other, yeah, but that's not a whole story.
The whole story is trying to have a relationship and save the world and not crunch into social garbage. Politics and personal.
When reading (or watching plays) about kings then the personal is political and the love of kings can destroy kingdoms. With our little teams of world savers the same thing applies, without the awkward aristocracy bit. Their love is world changing. It's cool.
Another thing I've been realising, or noticing, is that a lot of this fic is historical now. For Stargate season one fic is set, what, fourteen years ago now? Highlander always has flashbacks, but their version of 'present day' is coming up on twenty years old. In Highlander I always liked the contrast of social attitudes between Then and Now. But that's an ever increasing factor with my old fandoms. Then is becoming another country, and they did things differently there.
As increasingly highlighted by the different attitudes to and degree of assumed knowledge about diversity in sexuality.
With Doctor Who it's somehow easier to remember that everyone's era is different, probably because stories usually have time travel involved to get there. I'm listening to an audio set in the early 80s right now, with all 80s companions, and that's a historical. It's just weirder to realise about stuff that happened after I was, you know, me, existing and thinking and all that.
But this that I am noticing about what I don't want in my Stargate fic, it kind of adds up to, I don't want 90s attitudes, 90s thought patterns, things that would have seemed obvious in the 90s. Obvious to only one set of people (fic writers) but still, clearly plausible to someone. I want the characters to have kept up with, well, me.
This would be a basic error in historical fiction. It would be treating the past as a theme park, to put 2011 British thought patterns into Ye Olde Times. So logically it's an error to want it from my fic.
... but, it's what I want. A different set of assumptions in my fic. Even when it's about guys from Before.
Partly it's just because this is like eating chocolate. I do not want milk chocolate any more.
But partly it feels like the same fix-it attitude that most often gets me wanting fic in the first place. It could be better. In this case, the past could be better. By being more like me.
... I should watch that a bit careful.
Of course the other thing is that fanfic is a big conversation, and we've had that part of the conversation, and now we can assume a lot of things already established by that part and have different and more currently interesting conversations. That part is good.
New fic about old things can have new layers.
... this is kind of what I was studying all last semester with new versions of Romeo and Juliet, new discursive contexts bring out different intentional potentials in the source text. It's somehow easier to understand in a text older than I am.
Er, possibly because it's easier to understand that when I think about it I have new thoughts.
Except I did know that when I thought about old fandom stuff I had new thoughts, sometimes.
... sometimes I just have a kind of thought groove where I'm used to these same thoughts and we get along nicely so I just go there over again. That way is cosy.
Which I guess it's why it's a bit odd to revisit stuff and find it don't fit any more. Old chair no longer cosy. Sad.
I haven't actually rewatched Stargate for ages. Now I'm wondering what I'd see if I did.