Some late night musings

[swatkat]

I was just thinking about the question by our curious friend on the FFMB, and wondering how I would feel about a Section-skewed story with Michael/Terry instead of Michael/Nikita; or a story (Section-skewed, totally AU, whatever) where they would be brother and sister. The only reaction was "Ewww! No way!" That got me thinking more (er, sometimes I think too much) about the widely different fannish reactions regarding canon deviation in the two fandoms I'm mostly associated with.



HP, with all its characters and very little canon romance (thank you JKR, and please keep it that way) allows all kinds of pairings that actually fit in canon. Simplest example would be all the Hermione pairings – Harry/Hermione, Ron/Hermione, Draco/Hermione, Snape/Hermione, Remus/Hermione (too little), and Krum/Hermione (the oddest thing is – this is the only pairing confirmed in canon, and I've seen this in what? – two fics). And I haven't even touched upon the rarer pairings or femmeslash (OT – I have never, ever seen Lockhart/Hermione, and that is so canon *eg*). But even when the pairing isn't canon, and can no way ever be canon, there is always *some* interest about it. And talented authors can make the characters act IC even as they deviate from canon. Even some of the popular slash pairings can fall in this category *coughHarryDracocough* (okay, so I can't read Harry/Draco). LFN OTOH has pretty limited scope in this aspect, because canon has very specific pairings and centres around them – you can do pairings, but in most cases it would make the characters act OOC.

However, I'm always surprised at the lack of experimental fics of any form in LFN. We chatted about the lack of sex – but that's not the only thing here. I think I'll have to give an example again – Sirius/Remus is canon (yes, it is). There are many devoted S/R shippers who love the two characters and can't bear the thought of them paired with anyone else. But there are also people who don't particularly care for any one of them, and therefore pair them with other characters, and make it work. They do it by accepting Sirius/Remus in their plots. But it always surprises me that there is no LFN story (Mary Sues don't count) pairing Michael successfully with any other character, male or female. I mean, there are plenty of people who couldn't care less about Nikita and would happily see him paired forever with Elena. And canon does give some opportunities – even if they're small. I won't buy the small fandom argument, because back in the days the fandom may not have been as big as HP, but it wasn't too small either. (IMO, it's still not as small we think it is. It's just that there is a sudden dearth of good writers – almost all the authors I care about are here, in my flist *sigh*)

Again coming back to totally fantastic pairings. HP – and LOTR too – has abundance of pairings that are not canon and will never be canon. Except for those few strangely OOC Michael/Davenport fics, I haven't seen any such pairings in LFN. The general fannish reaction will always be "Ewww!" (except with Mary Sue, perhaps *snerk*) nell65 talked about the incestfic that never happened (not that I'm disappointed really). In HP, it would happen. And it would work.

I'm sure none of the above made any sense, so I'll just sum up echoing Curious: Why aren't there any different pairings in LFN (hang canon)? How come they never became popular? Why is our reaction so different?

And that said, Michael/Nikita is still my OTP. So there. *vbeg*

I did think of posting this on the FFMB for opinions, but there's no point in spamming the board with my vague ramblings. So, you all will have to read this instead.



~

Good thing: I just received news that my dear kitty (she lives at my grandfather's place in the small town where I come from) has given birth to four lovely kittens. They all seem quite healthy so far, and she is currently bringing down the house demanding food. Bad thing: I have no idea when I'll get to meet them, seeing that I can't visit too often. By the time I do, they'll probably be all grown-up and running wild.

Comments

Yeah, but....

[nell65.livejournal.com]

West Wing and Sports Night, a drama and a sitcom, have large fanficdoms and multi pairings, so do Law and Order, Sex in the City, NYPD Blue, ER.... Not to mention the vast and scary world of RPF/RPS.

It isn't just high fanatsy vs. 'the rest'.

It's like - Section story telling is through a microscope while others are 16mm wide screen.

So if you mess with the canon pairings, you aren't just alternate reality versions of canon, you totally screw with canon. As I understand it, in HP for example, all the best noncanon pairing stories take pains to set them into the overall context of the story of Voldemort vs. the world. They can do that *because* there is that overarching story.

There is no 'overarching' story in LFN that all the characters are merely players in. If you decide for example, and I think this has plenty of canon hints, to write Michael/Madeline (which I don't think anyone but BetsyG ever has and she did it AU) - it completely blows every single canon situation and event out of the water - you can't 'slip it into' canon - you have to warp canon to do it, essentially creating your own, new OOC Sectionverse as you go.

I couldn't do it because I don't feel at all sure enough of the Section!verse to mess with playing with it just enough to make that pairing work.

So - it is something about the canon story itself that limits the canon story telling possibilities; I think the AU world just reflects that.



Nell

But..but...!

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

It isn't just high fanatsy vs. 'the rest'.

The contrast I was making was more Romance Genre versus the rest. HP happens to be Fantasy (as does LOTR); Star Trek (which also generates 8 billion pairing varieties) would be SciFi; other genres such as Thrillers, Action/Adventure, Cop Shows, or even traditional dramas, etc., would all behave differently from Romance.

In Romance, the pairing *is* the point. Mess with the pairing and you no longer have the story.

LFN may have been created as an Espionage/Action drama, but it came to function in most of its characteristics as a Romance. And I think that fanfic arising out of any canon source in the Romance genre is going to be similar to LFN in terms of having a paucity of pairing varieties.

There *are* romance works where the settings/universes are vividly detailed -- but I'm willing to bet that if there's any fanfic associated with it, there is *still* very little in the way of pairing experimentation.

True -

[nell65.livejournal.com]

but I think that the reason LFN turned into Romance was because the canvas was so small - had they broadened the canvas, they could have told more stories.

There is Austen fanfic - and I think it *does* experiment with noncanon pairings. Because her canvas is big enough for it, hell her stories are many of them mix and match efforts in the first place, so re mixing and re matching is as easy as breathing in those universes.

I don't think the Romance genre is necessarily limited to small canvas stories - I think LFN was small canvas, and then fell back on romance because TPTB had very limited immaginations.

Nell

LOL, it's the chicken and egg question, isn't it?

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

I honestly think that even in romances with vivid and sprawling universes you wouldn't find the same proportion of interest in pairing varieties as in fanfic coming from other genres.

I will admit that I'm not very familiar with Austen, much less Austen fanfic (I tried reading Pride and Prejudice many years ago, and couldn't get through it, LOL). Perhaps it does have some experimentation (so does LFN, for that matter), but is it at the same level of frequency as fanfic in non-romance genres? If so, I would be very surprised.

I think TPTB turned LFN into a romance because they found themselves with a largely female audience drooling over the male lead, rather than because they had a small canvas.

Except they NEVER admitted that -

[nell65.livejournal.com]

that they had a largely female auidence that is.

They insisted, all the way practically to the bitter end that their primary audience for LFN was males 18-35 - that the WWW and LFN appealed to the same dynamic. Idiots.

Besides, if they'd paid attention to the bulk of the RD drooling audience, they would have written Michael a bloody haram and pushed Nikita off a cliff.

I don't think we'll ever see eye to eye on romance as a genre - but I really don't think it as limiting story-wise as you make it out to be. I'm not a huge fan of bodice ripers myself, I never picked one up until about six years ago...but I've loved Austen since I was a kid, and Heyer as soon as I read her - because they write in hugely complex worlds.

I'm not so sure but that the entire category of regency romance, to take an example, isn't *all* Austen/Heyer fanfic in one way or another - once they established that the Regency period had endless possibilities, hundreds of writers have played there, writing thousands of new pairings and variations on the old.

There is also endless possibility in canon Austen or Heyer, or their many immitators, for slash - and I suspect it is being written.

In fact, I'd bet there is a fair amount of slash fic for AE's most recent Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth.

I think the challenge - and to some degree the appeal - of LFN as a story writing universe is that it is limited, and that Section isn't fleshed out, forcing a almost all fic into studies of characters in claustrophobic situations. Situations where the canon interpersonal dynamics *are* the most fleshed out part of the universe - making them very difficult to play with in the same way that you can with other material.

Hmmmm

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

Well, it's possible I just haven't read enough Romance to have a good sense of it then. I've never read Austen, or Heyer (never heard of Heyer, LOL), and can only guess at what Regency Romance is.

I have always thought that the defining characteristic of "Romance" as a genre is that it involves a storyline where the primary focus is the relationship between a couple. The limitation of the plot is thus inherent in the genre -- if it isn't first and foremost "about" a relationship, then it isn't romance at all -- once it gets more complex than that, it becomes something else: maybe historical fiction, but not romance. But perhaps I'm jumping to the wrong conclusions out of a lack of knowledge.

The other thing that I guess I have trouble with is the idea of the "small canvas" -- to me, the fact that lots of things about Section's world were left undefined doesn't make the canvas small -- it makes it blank -- that is, very tempting to fill in. We know enough to make it tantalizing to think about, but not so much that it's set in stone and thus constricting creatively. So, to me, the lack of details about the setting doesn't lead to an inability to focus on anything but the main canon relationships. That's why I find myself searching for another explanation.

I don't know. Now I think I have even *less* of an idea about why it's like it is! LOL.

OMG! The fanfic!

[nell65.livejournal.com]

I have geen googling Austen fanfic sites. Oh my.

These labors of love are extraordinary - and many - and while I didn't sign on to any of the 'Racier' sites - which all require it out of interest in protecting 'younger readers' - but there is clearly much racy fic, especially on the 'firthness' fansite. LOL!

Hard to find many open references to slash - what with the whole awarness of young readers issue, but I'd lay money it's there. Also while most stories were canon couples - it wasn't all the main ones, other couples made appearences, and yes - I saw some highschool AUs. They are everywhere. Be afraid. Very afraid. LOL!

As for romance as a category/genre? Well - I did some quick googling on that too; and the definition you're using (focus on a single pair falling in love) is closer to that than mine was, because basically the defintions leave out my two favorites Austen and Heyer - both of whom I've always thought of as writing romance.

I thought it was a genre about courtship as much as love, and about the issue of getting men and women paired off so they can get on to the business of living, ie producing and raising children, as much as individual passion.

One of the sites also dismissed 'regency romance' as 'sweet' - apparently meaning no sex scenes or violence. My favorite Heyer's aren't 'sweet' at all; she has a very sharp and witty tongue and almost everyone in her best stories is wonderfully, imperfectly human, and many of hte secondary characters are cruelly described buffoons. Austen, writing contemproary fic inher own time, had a wicked eye and tongue too. The 'sweet' thing mystifies me altogether. So I'm guessing they're talking about something else? That I haven't read?

On the other hand, LFN doesn't really fit the category either as the "Romance" stressors (for marketing purposes) are all on happy endings, 'taming' the wild man, and no moral ambituities. LOL!

So I don't know what Austen is, or what LFN was once it made the Nikita/Michael story central rather than secondary.

Back to the original topic: I think (though I could be wrong!) that I meant 'blank' as much as I meant 'small' - that the world of Section was not well described or filled in. I know you've enjoyed filling it in. And that others have. But - not everyone does, or can.

I've been very frustrated by the blankness anyway, especially in comparison to some of my other favorite stories....which may also be because I wasn't a taper, and transcripts aren't enough to work from to get a 'sense' of the envrionment, which I really need to be able to write.

Wow, consider me educated!

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

I had no idea there was that much Austen-based stuff.

And what is Heyer's full name? If her stuff is good, I'd be willing to take a look. I suppose I should even give Austen another try -- she bored me senseless when I tried to read her in high school, but it's always possible my tastes have changed given how long ago *that* was. LOL.

On the other hand, LFN doesn't really fit the category either as the "Romance" stressors (for marketing purposes) are all on happy endings, 'taming' the wild man, and no moral ambituities. LOL!

I always assumed that was one of the reasons the fans seemed to feel *so* betrayed by the ending: they thought of the series as a Romance, and did *not* get the conclusion they felt they were owed.

Re: Wow, consider me educated!

[delle.livejournal.com]

Georgette Heyer. I haven't read her stuff, tho I"ll consider it, since Nell's giving her such a strong rec.

Try Austin again. I found I could read (and love) Austin after seeing it and I highly recommend the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice and the Emma Thompson version of Sense and Sensibility.

I dunno about the theory of why fans felt betrayed at the end of S5... I do NOT consider myself an HR at all and I hated the end. But, more accurately, I hated all of Season Five. I hated what they did to the show, to the characters I loved so much. I *did* rather like the way they ended 4LYF, although most fans (HRs?) didn't.

Re: Wow, consider me educated!

[nell65.livejournal.com]

I disliked season five - who didn't? Too many elements were missing and the whole Mr Jones/veytos the fortune telling computer angle was just bizzare - although no more bizzare than the idea that the collective was supposed to be scary.

But as for the ending, most of hte HR's I know who were still there at the end of S5 *did* like the ending with M/N acknowledging their love, then being pulled apart, not put together. Or at least, found it satisfying in the context of LFN.

Not that they haven't been equally happy to play with post S5 reuniting fic...but in a sense, it was nice that canon left that open ended for more story telling.

The outrage I remember was over the end of S4 and the whole mole/never-loved-you bit. But, after my intial shock over the 'I never loved you' line, I like FLYF - and I liked it just fine right up until that moment, then something like twenty minutes of 'whaaaa///?????', then - oh yeah. Cool.

And I'm about as HR as you can get.

What I think the 'fans' who howled didn't like was the idea that Nikita had secrets from Michael, and turned out to be just as good at playing her own game as he was at playing his. Feh on them.

~~~~~~~~~~

And yes, it's Georgette Heyer. Regency Romance is the category for fiction set, roughly, during the Regency period in England - more or less 1800 to 1825ish - think high-wasted dresses and Napoleonic Wars and you're in the right time zone. Heyer (pronouced hair if you're feeling very British) actually wrote a fair amount of historical fic for the period just before the Regency - more Georgian England - but the make-up on the men hasn't been a big hit in the late twentieth century. LOL!

Who knows - with the rise of 'metropoltian' men - it may make a big comeback soon. ;)

Did I mention I found an entire slash archive (also requiring a sign in) devoted to novels set in the regency/Napoleonic period but focused on all the various naval series/authors/stories? Austen - who wrote about handsome Naval officers more than once, is listed as one of hte authors whose stories are fair game...though of course its more Hornblower/latest Russel Crowe sailing film series (which MrNell and my father have both read *every single volume of*) whose name I can't remember.

After some more thinking/googling I realized that Austen, and to some degree Heyer, are more generally considered 'comedy of manners' novelists, and not romance novelists at all.

Which sheds precisely no light at all on the issue of why LFN canon is so resistent to alternative pairings, especially given that Michael and Niktia both had relationships with other people, forced *and* willing, and so did Madeline and Operations. Color me still completely baffled on that front.

Nell

Yes, I've read all your posts...

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

and I'm itching to reply, but first...

This is waaay OT, but I'd like to ask you a few questions about these Regency romances, and historical romances in general. You'll be shocked to know how little romance fiction I've read (long story *g*), and most of it was, well, crap. So I'd like to know a few things about good historical fiction for a change. *g* So, how far do you think these stories succeed in portraying the society of that period? While I'm sure most modern authors are smart enough to avoid anachronisms, do they also manage to portray their characters as convincing members of, say, early 19th century England? I'll give you an exmaple - take Elizabeth. She's as 'universal' as it gets (and that's why we still love her so much), but she's also very much a early 19th century girl. And so is everyone else in the novel. Now, it must've been easier for Austen because it was her society, but the little modern fiction I've read left me pretty disillusioned because the characters, for all the affectations and careful use of language, seemed like 20th century women placed in the early 19th century. *sigh*

After some more thinking/googling I realized that Austen, and to some degree Heyer, are more generally considered 'comedy of manners' novelists, and not romance novelists at all.

Actually, that's true about Austen. Austen is as anti-romantic as it gets (funny that a part of writing career overlapped with the 'Romantic' age), especially when compared to your typical romance fiction. Her novels, although centering around the romantic relationships (which are always very warm and sincere), are primarily comedies of manners. She's always more concerned about the social behaviour of her characters rather than their love affairs. I don't know if you've noticed, but there's almost no passionate romantic avowals in her novels. She reports those parts, skipping to the next part in the story.

On topic: What I think the 'fans' who howled didn't like was the idea that Nikita had secrets from Michael, and turned out to be just as good at playing her own game as he was at playing his. Feh on them.

They still howl, and 'word'. *g*

Swatkat

Well, now that I'm a little clearer on the

[nell65.livejournal.com]

current meaning of the category 'romance' - I realize that I don't like or read very much of it. What I like are comedies of manners, which often have courtship as a dominate plotline.

What confused me is that Heyer is located in the 'romance' section of the bookstore; and while her heroes usually do get to actually say "I love you" and sound like they really mean it (of course, Darcy gets to say that too, LOL!), her books are much closer to Austen than say, your standard bodice ripper.

I can't abide 'modern romance' - the characters never seem very real to me, and their problems are always too silly, or too real, either way - it isn't enough of an escape from my daily routine. I do occasionally read historical romance - mostly to be taken to a different place from my regular life - though if hte history sucks I can't.

But research is easier and easier to do well, so the history is usually pretty solid, especially for the better known writers. The problem, as you say, is that the heroine usually ends up seeming like a late twentieth century American chick plunked down via a time machine in some other setting. And honestly, so do the rest of the characters. The bulk of the romantic conflict is usually of the 'women can't do that/yes they can' variety.

The writers who actually aspire to create historically accurate mental universes for their characters aren't usually considered romance writers at all, just historical novelists. There the issue is the same as with any other novelist - have they created compelling characters in interesting situations that you can come to care about?

For me, the answer is often 'no' - but then, like I said, I'm really picky these days about what I'll read. I didn't like 'Girl with a Pearl Earing' - because honestly I didn't warm to Gerta, or whatever her name was, so I didn't in the end care very much what happened to her - as a result, I didn't finish the book. I thought the artist's wife and mother in law were both much more interesting women and would rather have read books about them.

MrNell gave me a novel about Eleanor of Acquataine - a historical figure I'm fascinated by - and I HATED it. Though I haven't told him so. It reduced this woman who ran a quarter of France in her own right, who married two kings and gave birth to several more and through her daughters created alliances from Spain to Germany, to a woman who never had a chance to be with her 'one true love.' It also turned Henry into a toad of the first order from the moment he walked onto the scene. Louis didn't come off all that well either. I wanted to read about a woman with a will to power who played the game with the best minds of her time; not a normal, if smart, woman with homely desires for love, hearth and home thrust into difficult situations by an accident of birth.

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

What confused me is that Heyer is located in the 'romance' section of the bookstore; and while her heroes usually do get to actually say "I love you" and sound like they really mean it (of course, Darcy gets to say that too, LOL!), her books are much closer to Austen than say, your standard bodice ripper.

Are these the same bookstores where the assisstants stare when you ask about Philip Pullman (although they've a rack full of his works), and you have to spell out the names (P-U-L-L, yes, it's PULLman) so that they can look in the computer? *g*

But research is easier and easier to do well, so the history is usually pretty solid, especially for the better known writers. The problem, as you say, is that the heroine usually ends up seeming like a late twentieth century American chick plunked down via a time machine in some other setting. And honestly, so do the rest of the characters. The bulk of the romantic conflict is usually of the 'women can't do that/yes they can' variety.

Just as I was afraid. I'm not sure why genre is so popular, but I really can't read a book if the characters are so skewed.

MrNell gave me a novel about Eleanor of Acquataine - a historical figure I'm fascinated by - and I HATED it. Though I haven't told him so. It reduced this woman who ran a quarter of France in her own right, who married two kings and gave birth to several more and through her daughters created alliances from Spain to Germany, to a woman who never had a chance to be with her 'one true love.' It also turned Henry into a toad of the first order from the moment he walked onto the scene. Louis didn't come off all that well either. I wanted to read about a woman with a will to power who played the game with the best minds of her time; not a normal, if smart, woman with homely desires for love, hearth and home thrust into difficult situations by an accident of birth.

I generally avoid reading fictional stories about great historical characters, simply because they skew the characters so much.

Swatkat