HOT GAY SEX!
May. 30th, 2003 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joiedecombatAs the subject has come up from two completely separate avenues recently, I feel obliged to ramble on it for a little while. Whee.
Now, I've had my share of mental scarring from bad fanfic and worse RP. I have nothing but contempt for people who throw canon characterization out the window for their own gratification, be it sexual or otherwise.
However!
Bad characterization is bad characterization. There is such thing as bringing one's own interpretation to an existing character, or taking said character in a previously unexplored direction through RP. This does not automatically equal bad characterization. If it did, all movie and TV adaptations, all novelizations and What Ifs, all spinoffs would suck. Unequivocally. 'Cause that's essentially what they are.
Furthermore, it is, or ought to be, fundamentally impossible to RP feature characters without deviating at least a little bit from canon. Because, y'know, stuff happens. Relationships are formed, not just sexual or romantic ones, but friendships and enmities and business partnerships, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam. Things happen that shape the character's attitudes and behaviors. They learn stuff. None of this means that the character is suddenly OMG NOT THE REAL THING any more. The essential character is true to canon, or should be if the RPer is doing a decent job of playing them.
And it can be fascinating to see alternate interpretations of a character, so long as the characterization is handled well. Canon doesn't show you everything about them, especially if they're not the main character of whatever work you've borrowed them from. With sources like comics, frequently a lot is glossed over, or only hinted at. Situations that could be very cool sometimes just never come up. If it's done well, it can be great to explore some of those things, to do a little bit of what-iffing, to put the spotlight on a character who's usually playing a secondary role, to shed a little more light on what makes them tick. That's why they call it interpretation, numbnuts.
Not to mention that, especially with series formats - especially with series formats that are handed from writer to writer like comics frequently are - canon doesn't always stay true to canon. Characters get written badly, subjected to horrible storylines, neglected in favor of more popular characters. Writers and publishers play to the lowest common denominator of their audiences. Things that might be entirely in character but wouldn't be accepted by a mainstream audience are avoided or carefully glossed over. Like, say, homosexuality. It happens. Some of the best interpretations have come about when intelligent writers and roleplayers have taken a horrible storyline and said "so what if this happened this way...?"
So, hey. If people want to complain about bad slashfic and gratuitous character-mangling, I'm right there with them. Just as long as we don't start tarring all fanfic and RP deviations from canon with the same giant brush. The folks who do that can bite me.
Now I'm going to go play some Diablo II.
Now, I've had my share of mental scarring from bad fanfic and worse RP. I have nothing but contempt for people who throw canon characterization out the window for their own gratification, be it sexual or otherwise.
However!
Bad characterization is bad characterization. There is such thing as bringing one's own interpretation to an existing character, or taking said character in a previously unexplored direction through RP. This does not automatically equal bad characterization. If it did, all movie and TV adaptations, all novelizations and What Ifs, all spinoffs would suck. Unequivocally. 'Cause that's essentially what they are.
Furthermore, it is, or ought to be, fundamentally impossible to RP feature characters without deviating at least a little bit from canon. Because, y'know, stuff happens. Relationships are formed, not just sexual or romantic ones, but friendships and enmities and business partnerships, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam. Things happen that shape the character's attitudes and behaviors. They learn stuff. None of this means that the character is suddenly OMG NOT THE REAL THING any more. The essential character is true to canon, or should be if the RPer is doing a decent job of playing them.
And it can be fascinating to see alternate interpretations of a character, so long as the characterization is handled well. Canon doesn't show you everything about them, especially if they're not the main character of whatever work you've borrowed them from. With sources like comics, frequently a lot is glossed over, or only hinted at. Situations that could be very cool sometimes just never come up. If it's done well, it can be great to explore some of those things, to do a little bit of what-iffing, to put the spotlight on a character who's usually playing a secondary role, to shed a little more light on what makes them tick. That's why they call it interpretation, numbnuts.
Not to mention that, especially with series formats - especially with series formats that are handed from writer to writer like comics frequently are - canon doesn't always stay true to canon. Characters get written badly, subjected to horrible storylines, neglected in favor of more popular characters. Writers and publishers play to the lowest common denominator of their audiences. Things that might be entirely in character but wouldn't be accepted by a mainstream audience are avoided or carefully glossed over. Like, say, homosexuality. It happens. Some of the best interpretations have come about when intelligent writers and roleplayers have taken a horrible storyline and said "so what if this happened this way...?"
So, hey. If people want to complain about bad slashfic and gratuitous character-mangling, I'm right there with them. Just as long as we don't start tarring all fanfic and RP deviations from canon with the same giant brush. The folks who do that can bite me.
Now I'm going to go play some Diablo II.
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no subject
Date: 2003-06-01 07:56 pm (UTC)Honestly? If people are so quick to judge that they don't take at least a moment to examine the content of what they're judging, their opinion hardly counts. Roleplaying, and to some extent, fanfiction, is about examining possibilities and interpretations, and anyone who goes Nazi on anyone who deviates a step from their idea of 'canon' hasn't, in my opinion, quite gotten the spirit of what roleplay is all about. It's not a wish fulfillment 'omg, i get 2 b ', it's an exploration of characters and situations, whether or not those situations have been examined in the canon.