I’m seeing quite a few comments today about the destructive effects of long hiatuses on the fandom’s enthusiasm and commitment, as well as some fairly witty ones (like this one). And to some degree I’m sympathetic to what they’re spelling out: a fandom that either goes crazy or departs and a production that falters because they’ve lost the core fandom that sustained enthusiasm between series.
I feel some schadenfreude at the latter, because I do think that the Hartswood crowd began to see the peril of this even before we did, and that probably explains the turnaround between when fanbashing was their major attitude and now, where there’s a cautious, at least verbal acceptance that the fans are creative/supportive and, tacitly, damned important to them continuing to rack up the all-important revenue even though they’re still flailing around on how to use fan engagement effectively.
But on the former point, I am wondering how much of this we bring on ourselves because of the way we define Sherlock as a “tv show” with all of the rapid-release and continuity that this entails. TV is supposed to operate this way, and Sherlock, although it’s unaired pilot was originally meant to fit this model, really is a outlier so far beyond the bounds of typical that it’s slipped into a near-alternate universe.
And yet, that universe may in fact be a better fit for what the show really is. By which I mean the universe of cinema-released movies. Aside from its release mode, prime time tv broadcast, Sherlock has much more in common with a big-scale movie ‘verse like the Ritchie Holmes movies or even the MCU. These kinds of multi-episode properties do sustain fannish enthusiasm, do have a lot of ep-to-ep continuity, but they also have production time hiatuses of years.
Okay, yeah, cinematic movies typically pay more, especially for the big stars, which may be at the heart of why there is a constant negotiation underway for each next series of Sherlock. For all that BC and MF owe a lot to Sherlock, their careers also require a lot of work to make sure that audiences don’t see them as defined by those roles. Really, that’s as far as one needs to look, without inventing some personal fallings-out, to explain the careful separation from Sherlock that these actors practice in their interviews. This is critical to their careers and they’re big enough players now that in order to stay in the game, they’ve got to stay fresh and available for new roles; typecasting, a struggle anyway for two such distinctive men, will be the death of their future role options. Add to that that they’re not either of them yet in the position to turn down high-paying, career-building new work and you have two actors who can only commit to more Sherlock when, really, they’ve got nothing else good on. And that’s a hard metric to force everyone else to, including such things as corporate budgets and network scheduling.
But by not really appreciating that and getting our feathers rumpled in taking each hiatus as a personal/fandom slight, I think that we’re (damagingly to ourselves) over-investing in the tv show model and refusing to see the show as what it is. Moffat has said this before: the 90-minute, limited-series model is cinematic and that’s more the framework they’re operating within. I wonder if fandom would be healthier and happier if it could endorse this model and weather the hiatuses with less trauma.
I think the creators of the series are the ones who are responsible for managing expectations when they call their creation a “TV Series”, or “Mini-Series”. It’s listed that way, it won awards in the categories for TV. It’s not big screen.
So, I don’t think the fans are to blame for just wishing for more. In fact, it’s high compliment– and when that stops– Mofftisson will have a real problem.
Call it what you like, they really did leave lots of loose ends after His Last Vow. A Marvel movie will leave maybe one or two loose ends but have each movie be a complete story. With the pool you knew at least what the cliffhanger was. It was a classic cliffhanger with a single point of focus. And with the fall – well the fall has been done before so there was a well understood separation between the fall and the return. But we don’t even know which plot threads of His Last Vow are loose ends and which plot threads were already resolved as well as they are going to be. And by the way which threads are being picked up in the special and which threads are to be picked up in season 4? I can’t imagine a movie hiatus to be all over the place like this is. Here is what I think. I think HLV was written like part 1 of a 2 part TV episode. Sometimes in a TV show a 2 parter will span seasons, but in that case, the 2 parts are only 6 months apart. But with HLV there are maybe 4 important plot threads, not just themes but critical plot threads, that are going to remain open for 2-3 years.
That thing about them leaving lots of loose ends is entirely subjective. If you accept that John forgave Mary and the goodbyes were real, the only plot thread that’s there is Moriary possibly not being dead.
It may very well turn out that HLV was just as shitty as it seems and the things that don’t make sense remain so. Then let’s talk about the state of fandom. But yes, I don’t think it’s as much about the long wait as it is about how nobody seems to be interested in creating theories about how Moriarty may have survived.
too noticed that it was a lot more exciting coming up with theories how Sherlock could have survived, cliffhanger S03… After TEH I felt like being ridiculed for this enthusiasm, because they literally employed it in E01. Ridiculous overweight Sherlockians in deerstalkers engaging in even more ridiculous theories involving ludicrous shipping. It was like a slap in the face, it wasn’t done gracefully or appreciative. They were simply making fun of us. They never reached the Supernatural level of incorporating the show within the show. The real solution was not presented ever, it was simply dropped and Mary was introduced to distract. Now it’s all revolving around her. John has become the little angry terrier always snapping and snarling at Sherlock, who himself is reduced to a Sheldon-style comic relief of an Asperger patient. Still no laughs for me. The eyeball in the tea. The origami opera houses. The best man speech. WTF? Why? What does this have to do with Sherlock Holmes? Could you have imagined this nonsense in S01? Would the ratings have been the same? Now they tried to use exactly the same cliffhanger again for S04. How did MORIARTY do it? Are they even wondering why it’s not working? Do they even care? I know for sure the fandom doesn’t care how Moriarty did it. We already spent two years wasting our free-time on theories & speculations about Sherlock’s fall, we were ridiculed and left wondering after S03 opened while getting heteronormativity shoved down our throats. After all I’ve seen from Setlock, they will continue the Mary storyline. They added a pink bunny-eared baby. Can this series scream any more NO HOMO? Still Johnlockers expect a gay coming out. Now the theory is that Moftiss toy with us to hide the gay. Are we getting desparate? No one cares how M did it cause this cliffhanger will be dropped as soon as the Watsons introduce little Sherlotta. If we indulge in theory-spinning the chubby deerstalker Sherlockian will make us appear like tinfoil hatters in no time. I am tired of BBC Sherlock. I kinda want it to be over. And they haven’t even finished filming.
We-start-with-the-riding-crop, you described the problem with Sherlock so clearly and to the point. The authors leave the audience at such a climactic cliffhanger – but never give us the “release” they were building. And then the audience is ridiculed for it in the first episode of Season 3. That is problem #1, which could have been alright if they continued with the same people (Sherlock and John), but they gave us imposters that act completely different than they did in the first two seasons. I realize things change with time/circumstances, but not a person’s inherent character.
(P.S. Devin Faraci tried to fight with me and subsequently blocked me on Twitter because I retweeted a bunch of things he’s said over he years about fan culture, which are handily quoted in this Tumblr post! Please enjoy! 😀 )
So as we all know, movie critic Devin Faraci caused a minor internet brouhaha Tuesday with a controversial piece about online fandom. “Fandom is broken” — which piggybacks off a milder but similar article published last week by the AV Club and argues that fan culture has entered an ugly phase — was largely met with solemn nods of agreement by everybody except, uh, anybody who’s actually in fandom and actually knows what the fuck fan culture is about.
The main target of the piece is fan entitlement, which Faraci believes is the result of fandom being “post-fanfic.” That is, he thinks the current state of fandom — which can be overwhelmingly polarized and activist — is a natural result of fans having so much personal autonomy over their own fanfiction and other fanworks (including fanart, fan film, fan meta, shipping, and fan theories). Consequently, they seek to have the same level of creator control over their canons, too.
Before we go any further, let’s be clear here. Some people should be told at all times that their diminishment of cultures they don’t understand only makes them look small, petty, and ridiculous. Faraci is one of those people. He has demonstrated again and again that he has only a cursory understanding of what fanworks-based fan culture is, and utterly no interest in examining it to a closer degree.
Faraci’s consistent response to fanworks and remixing in general is to be cavalierly dismissive. Please enjoy this litany of Faraci being cavalierly and unilaterally dismissive of virtually every fannish practice, from shipping to fan films to fanfiction:
To anyone who’s spent any amount of time immersed in fan culture, Faraci’s attitudeabout fandom is unilaterally tone-deaf, laughably inaccurate, and full of hubris. He is jawdroppingly secure in his opinions, and when you attempt to suggest that fanworks are far more complex than he’s acknowledging — as I once did in a brief exchange after one of his derisive tweets about fan theories — he typically dismisses you out of hand or ignores you altogether:
And then there’s this gem:
When I retweeted all of these tweets just now, Faraci responded by a) calling me out to his 40,000 followers, most of whom are apparently male and who naturally began brigading and harassing me on Twitter; b) blocking me, and c) tweeting this:
So. Now that we’ve established that Devin Faraci is a dismissive demeaning sexist shitbag and everything he says about being “concerned” about “fan entitlement” is concern trolling because he HATES fanworks and fans who create stuff and overanalyze and generally actively engage with texts, let’s move on, shall we?
You can ship characters for happily ever afters, sure, you can ship them for tragically-then-happily, you can ship two or three or four or more, you can ship endless combinations of personality types and relationship dynamics
but you can also ship characters under very specific circumstances, or for a certain period of their life but not for all of it, or only in a certain universe. You might say “I ship these characters” and what you mean is you think they are fascinating together and could have a story together. That story could be any kind of story.
Sometimes it means you want them together for the rest of their lives. Sometimes it means something different than that.
I don’t know about you, but for me, “I ship it” means “There is a story in this ship and I am interested in that story.”
for me, “I ship it” means “There is a story in this ship and I am interested in that story.”
So I’m on AO3 and I see a lot of people who put “I do not own [insert fandom here]” before their story.
Like, I came on this site to read FAN fiction. This is a FAN fiction site. I’m fully aware that you don’t own the fandom or the characters. That’s why it’s called FAN FICTION.
Oh you youngins… How quickly they forget.
Back in the day, before fan fiction was mainstream and even encouraged by creators… This was your “please don’t sue me, I’m poor and just here for a good time” plea.
Cause guess what? That shit used to happen.
how soon they forget ann rice’s lawyers.
What happened with her lawyers.
History became legend. Legend became myth…. And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost.
I worked with one of the women that got contacted by Rice’s lawyers. Scared the hell out of her and she never touched fandom again. The first time I saw a commission post on tumblr for fanart, I was shocked.
One of the reasons I fell out of love with her writing was her treatment of the fans… (that and the opening chapter of Lasher gave me such heebie-jeebies with the whole underage sex thing I felt unclean just reading it.)
I have zero problem with fanart/fic so long as the creators aren’t making money off of it. It is someone else’s intellectual property and people who create fan related works need to respect that (and a solid 98% of them do.)
The remaining 2% are either easily swayed by being gently prompted to not cash in on someone else’s IP. Or they DGAF… and they are the ones who will eventually land themselves in hot water. Either way: this isn’t much of an excuse to persecute your entire fanbase.
But Anne Rice went off the deep end with this stuff by actively attacking people who were expressing their love for her work and were not profiteering from it.
The Vampire Chronicles was a dangerous fandom to be in back in the day. Most of the works I read/saw were hidden away in the dark recesses of the internet and covered by disclaimers (a lot of them reading like thoroughly researched legal documents.)
And woe betide anyone who was into shipping anyone with ANYONE in that fandom. You were most at risk, it seemed, if your vision of the characters deviated from the creators ‘original intentions.’ (Hypocritical of a woman who made most of her living writing erotica.)
Imagine getting sued over a headcanon…
Put simply: we all lived in fear of her team of highly paid lawyers descending from the heavens and taking us to court over a slashfic less than 500 words long.
all
of
this
Reblogging because I can’t believe there are people out there who don’t know the story behind fan fiction disclaimers.
There was a huge kerfuffle with Marion Zimmer Bradley before the Anne Rice controversy. It’s a drawn-out tale; I recommend looking it up because I might miss something. ;-
wasn’t there a similar kerkuffle in the star wars fandom
like, back in the time of zines, didn’t Lucasfilm go down hard on the shipping or did I dream that
I’m sorry to say I don’t know, being relatively new to fandomland. Does anyone else know the history on this?
when I first got into reading fic, I sort of researched the history of fandom a lot (fandom archaeology! such a nerd) and, uh…
that DEFINITELY happened. Luke/Han shippers had their stuff basically blacklisted from zines because lucasfilm banned ‘adult content’ fanworks…and all slash was considered ‘adult content’ DDD:
the fans panicked. nobody would publish han/luke.
also a lot of fans were all ‘moral outrage’-y at the idea of slash in general (and luke/han in particular).
the luke/han pairing went *way* underground; people passed their fic around privately and secretly. nothing was published in zines until the first issue of Elusive Lover in 1996.
and even after this, the whole ‘slash is against the RULES!!1!1!!’ mentality seemed to persist for a good long while in the star wars fandom, because even online fic for the prequels would sometimes have, in addition to the ‘it’s not mine! please don’t sue me!’ disclaimers, rather *terrifying* (esp. for young me) warnings on them
like
‘we can’t promise you that lucasfilm won’t legally go after you if they find out you read this’
type warnings
honestly, the way that fans are clamoring for CANON GAY STAR WARS characters now is…really sort of amazing and wonderful to me.
I weirdly love that there are crotchety fandom elders around who say shit like “in my day, (insert fandom term) meant this specifically, but now you kids just use it to mean any old thing.”
It seriously gives fandom such a sense of heritage and family, like yes grandma, tell me more about how you had to write fic uphill both ways in the snow when you were my age.
you darn kids and your drabbles that aren’t exactly 100 words
You hear all these “you’re not a real fan unless” and it lists a hundred things, but I met a dude today who saw my Deadpool pin and asked what my favorite story arc was, and I explained that while I loved Deadpool, I was new to Marvel (I only really got into it a year and a half ago) and hadn’t been able to find a lot of the comics. Instead of making a face or a derogatory comment, he just offered to send me all the stuff he had. That is a true fan.
I told the guy at the comic shop when I went in for Black Widow that I’d seen a few Harley Quinn panels on Tumblr and thought it looked badass but didn’t know where to start because my entire involvement in DC fandom was watching the Batman cartoon as a kid. This guy sitting at one of the tables playing Yu-Gi-Oh, wearing a comic shirt and carrying a definitely-hardcore-fan amount of swag, spins around and goes “dude! You’ve never read DC? Check out the back issues wall. They’ve got all kinds of Harley Quinn.” He then proceeded to explain how “New 52″ was a spinoff, and had some split opinions in the fandom, but either continuity is good as long as you pick one and stay with it so you don’t get mixed on what’s going on.
True fans love to see other people loving the stuff they love.
