chordatesrock

In writing Jak and Daxter fic, we have nearly a decade of fanon and fan interaction to draw on. Sometimes, fanon begins to spiral away from the source material as one person bases fanon on another person’s fanon that was based on another person’s fanon. Because we’ve been at this a long time, I wanted to make some lists of ways to interpret different aspects of canon in our fics, just to remind everyone-- including myself-- that nine-year-old fanon might be great, but it’s not our only option.

( Some questions canon does not answer )

In response to the free-for-all meta comment-a-thon prompt asking about rule 63, I wrote this. It was too long for a comment.

( a genderswap of Avatar: The Last Airbender )

Description is often looked down on by members of fandom on the grounds that “we already know Harry Potter has green eyes; we don’t need you to tell us again.” To some extent, this is a good point. However, there are various uses for description in fanfiction. The important thing is that the description should do something more than just upping the wordcount.

( it isn't always useless )

This was going to be part of Happy Endings Are Not (Always) Wrong, but I decided that it didn't fit well with the rest of the essay. It felt tacked on, and it had been its own separate essay before I thought of including it there, so I separated it again.

( What’s aired on HBO is not mature )

(If this topic interests you, you might also like to read When Will Reality Finally Be My Escapist Fantasy? by sylvaine. Tangentially related is kiki_eng's I Believe in Stories.)

I know that some people like happy endings and others do not. This is a matter of personal taste. However, some of the defenses of unhappy endings disappoint me.

Should every story end happily? Of course not. Many stories are greatly improved by ending badly. Some people enjoy reading sad stories with sad endings, and the sad elements in bittersweet endings can strengthen them as much as the happy ones.

However, I see that, sometimes, when a sad ending is unpopular, its defenders may state or imply that there is something morally superior about a sad ending, that happy endings (or a specific happy ending) are for people who are naive or weak and need to grow up. This isn’t true. In fact, many of the people who are most interested in happy endings (or lack of some real-world problem) are reading for escapism precisely because they are so aware of the problems in real life. I see some general trends in defenses of sad endings: people argue that they are more realistic, and people use this argument (that sad endings are realistic) to discount both people who prefer happier endings and people who prefer better-written or otherwise different kinds of sad endings.

From K.A. Applegate’s letter to fans regarding the ending of Animorphs, we get this quote:

Animorphs was always a war story. Wars don't end happily. Not ever.

This is in defense of the last book. ( major Animorps spoilers, significant Avatar: TLA spoilers )

I would also like to briefly discuss darkness within the body of a story, such as in grimdark fantasy.

( In which good things are always unrealistic )

First, I would like to alert you to a probable lack of non-month_of_meta-scheduled content during the remainder of this month.

Second, the rest of this post is metaphorical, and is, to the best of my knowledge, not literally true. However, it is applicable to real-world situations.

( I'm sure saying 'bite me' doesn't remove the monster's culpability, either. )

This was written in response to An Introduction to Mary Sue and Her Critical Uses and Abuses. It is not beta-read.

( about Mary Sues )

In your opinion, do you think that writers and other artists should include members of marginalized groups to which they do not belong in their works? I hear it said that this is a moral imperative, but I also hear it said that it's wrong to write marginalized identities you don't share even when they're next door to your own (such as a PWD writing about characters with different disabilities). What are your feelings on this topic?

I tend to notice general correlations between language and attitudes about disability. However, I believe this is because people choose their language based on their attitudes. When a person hears from someone xe generally listens to about disability what the proper language is, xe will usually adopt it.

I would be very surprised to find that changing language had ever changed a single person's attitude toward even one disability. Further, I find that people ask for mutually exclusive and contradictory things.

( what kinds of language are out there )

While I'm here, I'll link you to something else I found: a 5-Step Guide on Writing a Character with X Disorder or X Disease.

It has been quite some time since I read Animorphs. As such, I may not be remembering correctly. However, I think that what I recall of the last four books of the main series makes me uncomfortable.

( elaboration, focusing on the Auxiliary Animorphs )

Those spoilers aside, I would also like to mention my problem with the portrayal of the Andalites' reaction to vecols. (Vecol is close in meaning to cripple, but, in some ways, it's closer in connotation to vegetable in that it allows for no possibility of the vecol being worth interacting with or having any compensating talents or quality of life.)

This is interesting, because, on some level, the writers Care About The Disabled (semi-sarcastic capitalization necessary), but I don' think that it's useful. It portrays ableism as a terrible, obvious Bad Thing. This cartoonish portrayal of prejudice is to prejudice as Visser Three is to dictators.

Yes, ableism can be like that in real life, but it can also be more subtle. The world doesn't fall into two distinct categories of people, one of which holds maximally ableist positions and one of which doesn't. Ableism is a virus that passes memetically from one infected host to another, via culture. Ableism is a broad category of beliefs, feelings and actions. Any given person with ableism does not necessarily have the most severe case. Xe might have only a few ableist beliefs and hold many anti-ableist views. Xe might be actively trying to improve disabled people's lives and be, on the net, decreasing the amount of ableism in the world... and yet, xe might still have some knee-jerk reactions stored away in the deepest recesses of xyr psyche.

Ableism is not so simple. I think it does people a disservice to portray only one kind of ableism, and I think this kind is the worst kind to portray if you can only choose one.