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[O hai. It's December Days time, and this year, I'm taking requests, since it's been a while and I have new people on the list and it's 2020, the year where everyone is both closer to and more distant from their friends and family. So if you have a thought you'd like me to talk about on one of these days, let me know and I'll work it into the schedule. That includes things like further asks about anything in a previous December Days tag, if you have any questions on that regard.]
Another question that I picked up from a different question meme going around:
Well, given how many words I've written as I continue to work my way through it, and the fact that I officially call it part of a series that is "The Suck Fairy's Greatest Hits", the obvious suggestion is that I was one of the many people who absolutely adored The Dragonriders of Pern and have fallen out of love with it the more that I read of it, from the authors that are involved. That's not quite the case, as I wasn't particularly in love with it right from the beginning. As evidenced by not having already read the whole set, both authors and all, but also because all that I really remember about it is the setting and the idea of the dragons as being different than the standard-issue villainous greedy creatures that I had encountered in other works. (And that didn't stop me from carving my way through so many of those unhappy dragons in things like Final Fantasy games, so, whatever.) And the rest of the world outside of the dragons probably seemed vaguely feudalish at the time, so I don't think I paid it much mind, especially not compared to the possibilities of that kind of dragon. I was young then, and I suspect a whole lot of things passed me by that I didn't understand, especially not the way that the mating flight rays actually worked and the consequences of them. So, no, that's not one of my past loves, not in the "absolutely love this" way, and even now, with all the time and words spent on showing up just how terrible Pern-as-written is, I can still see how the concept itself could have been used for something better, where things could have taken an off-ramp to being something only mildly terrible, or even something where the unique issues that come with having telepathically bonded dragons were a known quantity and have workarounds built into the society to make them less terrible, or to use them in ways that minimize the amount of harm that happens when every so often, people are seized by uncontrollable sexual desire as the dragons go flying overhead. The sorts of things that a good and robust fic culture can produce. Or that someone else can do in a pastiche-y sort of way, where it's clear what someone's looking at without actually naming the place, and showing the different way that it can be taken care of.
( The real answer is something else entirely )
But, at least for the question asked, I cut my teeth on some pretty punny materials that had settings that were interesting at the time, and a lot of the things that were happening were things that I read but didn't understand, and so they didn't affect my enjoyment of the work. It takes courage to come back to those things and read them again, but also, there was a comment I heard or read somewhere that authors turning out to be terrible in time doesn't mean that your enjoyment of the work at the time is somehow tainted and wrong because you didn't know, and your happiness and enjoyment of the thing was genuine, and that's okay. But it's different to know now and enjoy it uncritically than it was then, and someone who persists in uncritically enjoying it now might suffer a certain amount of people being upset with them for that persistence and deliberate decision not to engage with all of the aspects of the person and their works.
Another question that I picked up from a different question meme going around:
What's a canon that you truly, truly loved, but fellow out of love with, and why?
Well, given how many words I've written as I continue to work my way through it, and the fact that I officially call it part of a series that is "The Suck Fairy's Greatest Hits", the obvious suggestion is that I was one of the many people who absolutely adored The Dragonriders of Pern and have fallen out of love with it the more that I read of it, from the authors that are involved. That's not quite the case, as I wasn't particularly in love with it right from the beginning. As evidenced by not having already read the whole set, both authors and all, but also because all that I really remember about it is the setting and the idea of the dragons as being different than the standard-issue villainous greedy creatures that I had encountered in other works. (And that didn't stop me from carving my way through so many of those unhappy dragons in things like Final Fantasy games, so, whatever.) And the rest of the world outside of the dragons probably seemed vaguely feudalish at the time, so I don't think I paid it much mind, especially not compared to the possibilities of that kind of dragon. I was young then, and I suspect a whole lot of things passed me by that I didn't understand, especially not the way that the mating flight rays actually worked and the consequences of them. So, no, that's not one of my past loves, not in the "absolutely love this" way, and even now, with all the time and words spent on showing up just how terrible Pern-as-written is, I can still see how the concept itself could have been used for something better, where things could have taken an off-ramp to being something only mildly terrible, or even something where the unique issues that come with having telepathically bonded dragons were a known quantity and have workarounds built into the society to make them less terrible, or to use them in ways that minimize the amount of harm that happens when every so often, people are seized by uncontrollable sexual desire as the dragons go flying overhead. The sorts of things that a good and robust fic culture can produce. Or that someone else can do in a pastiche-y sort of way, where it's clear what someone's looking at without actually naming the place, and showing the different way that it can be taken care of.
( The real answer is something else entirely )
But, at least for the question asked, I cut my teeth on some pretty punny materials that had settings that were interesting at the time, and a lot of the things that were happening were things that I read but didn't understand, and so they didn't affect my enjoyment of the work. It takes courage to come back to those things and read them again, but also, there was a comment I heard or read somewhere that authors turning out to be terrible in time doesn't mean that your enjoyment of the work at the time is somehow tainted and wrong because you didn't know, and your happiness and enjoyment of the thing was genuine, and that's okay. But it's different to know now and enjoy it uncritically than it was then, and someone who persists in uncritically enjoying it now might suffer a certain amount of people being upset with them for that persistence and deliberate decision not to engage with all of the aspects of the person and their works.
