From scarletsherlock

[my_daroga]

Ask me one fandom-related question in the comments. This can be fandom specific, general, or about fandom/lj stuff/fic writing/etc. in general.

Just one question, please, but it can (and perhaps should) have sub-parts.

Question can be as wacky as you want. Ask me about tv shows, characters, fanfic in general, fandom issues/meta, anything about any of my stories specifically. Whatever you want.

Comments

[dangerousdame.livejournal.com]

As someone who's been getting into Doctor Who over the past year and a half, I'd like to see the old series. So, tell me: do I need to see *every* one of the thirty seasons, or does each doctor only need a few specific episodes, or what?

[my_daroga]

In my opinion, and this is someone not really in the fandom but who watched as a kid, No. It is not necessary to see every story of every season of every Doctor. You'd want to watch every episode of the particular story you're interested in, because they usually are grouped with cliffhangers. Most people I know pick and choose, though I think they'll pick a Doctor and watch all his stuff. There are some I haven't seen a single episode for, though I should. I should add that most DVDs will have all the relevant episodes, or be labeled adequately so you can find them (from what I can tell). The length of the serials will vary, too.

I'm afraid I'm not much help in picking out the stories to watch, however, as it's been far too long. I'm fond of Four and Five, but not everyone is. (Especially Five.)

[inlaterdays.livejournal.com]

What's your favorite (or top few favorites) from your own fic?

[my_daroga]

Hmm. I guess I'll put "Kissing the Frog" up there, as something I'm proud of (though it wasn't much, really, just an idea). And I like the two lovelorn-Persian fics, "Infidel" and "The Conjurer's Trick."

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

I *really* like your Persian/Erik stories, too.

[deathmask-revel.livejournal.com]

Do you think fandom provides an emotional connection otherwise lacking in real interpersonal relationships for people who are not for whatever reason able to have said connection with real people, and do you think this is good/bad for the development of such a person and why?

[tkp.livejournal.com]

FTW.

[tkp.livejournal.com]

The sub-part of my question to K goes to you:

Want to watch Dexter with us (if K says yes [when Mr. Daroga isn't around])?

[deathmask-revel.livejournal.com]

Yes. But does it have to be when Mr. Daroga isn't around? Can't he just be, I dunno, working on his comic or something? XD

[my_daroga]

This is a complicated question. One, I'm not a psychologist. Two, I can only speak from my own experience and I don't think that's applicable to everyone, even if it may be relevant to others "like me." In whatever sense.

The way I think of it is the way I think about violence in the media. Does it affect the viewer, prompting violence in their own behavior? Generally, I think, no. And those it does have an influence on would have found some other impetus for their behavior. We had inexplicable violence before tv, after all. Most of us don't go out and callously commit acts of violence. Nor do we all become promiscuous sluts because we've watched too much sex on tv.

I don't think the parallel is exact, but I do think that the effect of internet fandom is going to vary greatly depending on the person. For me, growing up in a small town with few people who shared my interests--and on top of that, moving a lot as a teenager--fandom provided something steady. It provided relationships with a wider variety of people, in on sense--I was interacting with people of all ages, from various backgrounds (even if we all dug Sherlock Holmes or whatever and were anti-social dorks. If that is even true.). Some of them I'm still in contact with.

I think it also depends on how you use it. When I grew up a little and got busier in my life and got a boyfriend and a decent job, I wasn't much involved online. When I got involved again, it didn't replace the relationships I'd developed in "real life" but it did supplement my life with some of the dorkier, fannish interaction I do miss from "mundane" life. But there's a balance.

I'm not sure if I'm answering your question. My opinion is basically that it can be beneficial for people without a social structure to support them, or who need a little distance to have that emotional involvement, but that if taken too far it can be a crutch. Like any "addiction" that is no longer supplementing but supplanting reality. Because I can't say that the relationships I've had online are all "not real." It's a tool. But you have to use it, not let it own you. We all, at some point, have some reason that it's difficult to have relationships with "real people." But those reasons are so varied, and the response to them so varied, that I can see it aiding someone's personal growth, or totally impeding it. I can see both potentials in myself. So far, I think I've been successful in maintaining the former.

[deathmask-revel.livejournal.com]

Wow, I don't think I was expecting such an involved answer. I just wanted to ask something that sounded intelligent. XD <3

[my_daroga]

You should realize you can't ask questions like that without expecting a detailed answer. From me.

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

What's the psychology behind 'ship wars?'

[my_daroga]

What an enormous question!

I haven't researched this extensively. And I try to avoid them, as it's something I really don't get. I have strong opinions about what I like, and who should end up with who, but most of the time the possibilities exist as parallels in my mind and I can see the ships everywhere, even if I'm not into them.

But as I said to inlaterdays a few days ago, I sort of see it as the same impulse that makes people in high school form cliques or adopt the trappings of a subculture. It's a way of differentiating yourself ("I am unique") while not entirely alienating yourself ("but there are all these other freaks like me"). Especially in the larger fandoms, it's a way of splitting off so that the fandom it's an unwieldy size--I think that's unconscious, though.

Maybe some of it, too, comes from over-identifying with one or both of the characters involved. Looking at the combat in Doctor Who fandom between those who favor Rose and those who favor Martha as companions, the actual argument is ridiculous: they both have equal standing because they both traveled with the Doctor and got to be involved in his adventures. They both left in the end. But I think the viewer who identifies strongly with one or the other feels personally affronted when they perceive their chosen avatar "passed over" by other fans or the show itself. I actually feel a twinge of this myself, sometimes. But I recognize that it's a preference, not a logical argument. But anyway, maybe some people in the ship thing feel that "character X is me, and if someone believes character Y belongs with character Z instead, I'm being insulted." It may not be that explicit, but identification plays a part, I think.

Also, people like to argue, and the internet (and formerly, zine fandom) provides a safe, anonymous, faceless place to shoot one's mouth off and enjoy the drama. About something inherently unimportant. Which I guess has its appeal, for some.

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

I think the "clique" idea has merit; it's like losing yourself in the herd.

Doctor Who ship wars are pretty foreign to me, as I haven't watched the show since Doctor Six departed, and back in those days the companions weren't really "romantic partners" anyway. What I was thinking more were the knock-down-drag-out fights in X-Files over M/S vs. non-M/S, and the "Harmonians" in the Harry Potter world.

ITA about total identification with the character (esp. in a hetero situation, where it's a female IDing w/ the female character.) That IMO explains some of the vehement anti-R/C feeling in the 2004 movie Phantom story. IMO a lot of young girls really ID'd with Christine - to the point where sometimes you couldn't say anything critical about the character w/o receiving a response consistent with criticizing the viewer herself!

Can I offer my own 2 cents here? I think another reason for "ship wars" is that the creator has been ambivalent or unclear in the story development; especially in sending "signals" to the audience & then yanking them away, so to speak. That's why IMO it's hard for some readers to appreciate R/C in Leroux's original - Raoul is contradictory in some respects (naval officer, yet "girlish," "frail," "raised by women," etc.) They can't reconcile the two sides of his character.

Or there is the bleed-over between books and movies, because we are visual creatures and sight trumps reading, oftentimes. Many HP readers, for instance, in the early movies felt that the director(s) were "setting up" for a Harry/Hermione ship, and that perception "bled a Ha/He ship probably wasn't in JKR's cards, despite what the early movies might have suggested, and thus there was a lot of "betrayal" when it became obvious that the prime "ship" was going to be R/H. Similarly, I worked a lot of stage-show Raoul into my own interpretation of Raoul in Phantoms of the Past, as opposed to Leroux's original character.

Thanks - hope you found it an interesting question!

[tkp.livejournal.com]

Want to watch Dexter with me when Mr. D is not around?

[my_daroga]

Yes. I think it might ping his "violence for its own sake" thing.

[tkp.livejournal.com]

Well, uh, he said something snarky when I mentioned I brought them because I thought you guys would like them. So I figured.

[phantoms-siren.livejournal.com]

Are there any fandoms you just don't get?