Fandom Snowflake 03 - Only by tooting our own horns can the composition can be heard

[silveradept]

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator.

When your creative output (or rather, what you think of as your creative output) is so small, recommending your favorites is easier than it might be if you had a giant amount of possible works to choose from. It doesn't say a lot about the breadth of my fandom, though, unlike those who have a lot to choose from.

1. As a fantasy reader, primarily, I tend to key into dragons as a large part of my reading choices. Preferably dragons not in the one-dimensional Ultimate Evil forms. So the Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Wrede) are great for a young me to see that those stories exist (with bonus active princesses, invisible dusk-blooming chokevines, and wizards being melted with dish soap and water. Argelfaster.) and books like Seraphina and Shadow Scale (Hartman) successfully showing how living as a dragon in the human world is full of the sad experiences of discrimination.
   
   And then there's The Dragonriders of Pern, which at the time of reading it, seemed like a good fit for a dragon-loving child. It was because I liked it a a kid that I decided to go back through it and see how much I was looking at it with rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. As it turns out, a lot. So one of my recommendations is an ongoing giving-of-grief to The Dragonriders of Pern, because I can't change that I liked it as a kid, but I can go back to it and understand what it was I liked.
2. That is not to say that I think it's wrong to like problematic things. As our social consciousness expands, we look at things from our last and realize how far things have come from days when everyone assumed slaves were an essential part of a functioning society - at least now we try to hide it better. For all their faults, and those faults are legion, Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey advance the goal of a literate society by providing them with entertaining works to read.
   
   Being fannish, though, often means noticing details and their execution (or lack thereof). Being able to apply your own expertise to a story to make it better or to fix issues of Did Not Do The Research can help salvage an otherwise excellent fandom. So, number two is An analysis of the baseball scene in Twilight, pointing out as many ways as I could think of that proper baseball fans who are vampires would not be doing what the Cullens do (with extra care for Isabella Swan's life and health than the Cullens show).
   
   Speaking of baseball, the last two years I've been writing various essays about the game, its players, and some of the things that make it compelling and wonderful. The frame that helps give it coherence and scope has been a deck of Tarot cards with a baseball theme. Of the comments received on this series, the people reading certainly seem to enjoy them, which is nice to hear. They are all filed under the December Days: Baseball Tarot tag - please do look and comment. I love comments.
   
   So there's a sampling of the stuff that I do - it may not be your favored flavor, but it seems to be what I'm interested in writing.

Comments

[silveradept]

Moreta is probably "Less-Sucky Pern", based on how things have gone so far. After all, we haven't yet had a non-consensual sexual act!

I still would like to have seen canon Lessa using those skills she had in Dragonflight more - it would make the actions of everyone around her more interesting in trying to figure out whether what they did was them or was her manipulating them.

Ranie, I think, won't have nearly as much difficulty in using her abilities.

[chordatesrock]

Lessa's telepathy is something I wondered about a lot before I started writing. (And I might be in the middle of a project whose handling of it you'd like. But not sure if you really would, or if it'll work.) Particularly whether it was well-known. She doesn't exactly tell people about it, but F'lar guesses easily, but no other Weyrleader or Lord Holder ever suspects her of it that we know of, but then maybe she's just that good? But then again, F'lar, the only one we know of who guesses about Lessa's ability, is also one of few people who believe in Thread, etc., and... okay, this is kind of fanwanky! But this is a scene from a Pern fanfic I'm working on that's just hit the cutting-room floor, so to speak (the scene, not the whole fic):

“…in every tradition handed down to us, no matter if it be a Teaching Ballad or an overlooked superstition,” F’lar was saying.

“What, you mean you even believe in stories like Lord Holders putting thoughts in people’s heads and little dragons that fit on a man’s shoulder?” the same brownrider from before said, his voice dripping with scorn.

(You can tell it's pre-Dragonquest, can't you?)

But, I mean, F'lar is a conspiracy theorist! He is! He believes in a menace everyone else laughs at, holds to all these outdated traditions because they're totally all part of their ancestors' grand plan to save them from this selfsame ancient menace that no one's seen in centuries, etc. So I'd like information about whether anyone other than F'lar believes in telepathy before I conclude that anyone other than F'lar thinks Lessa can manipulate people that way.

I'm not sure what you mean about Ranie not having as much difficulty. Could you clarify that?

I have just remembered that you don't want spoilers, so no more Moreta discussion for you. (Sorry.) I look forward to reading what you have to say about the book as you get through it, though! :)

[silveradept]

Lessa had a narrative working against her, embodied in the conspiracy theorist who turned out to be right fast more than not. Ranie probably doesn't have the narrative working against her use of her abilities - she may still have to hide them or their usage, but I don't think she'll have the entire story turning to make sure she's neutralized once she Impresses.

I wish I knew whether anyone else believed in telepathy after he turned out to be right on Thread, but no such luck in the books. Fic to the rescue.

[chordatesrock]

Ahhh, you mean Lessa had more trouble than Ranie because Anne McCaffrey and I have different attitudes? LOL, well, *that's* true.

(Someday I will write a fanfic about The Time F'lar Went Haring Off After A Red Herring In The Records And Was Totally The Tinfoil Kind Of Conspiracy Theorist. Because I can believe a conspiracy theorist being right pretty often, if that conspiracy theorist does that much research! But being right all the time? If even the best conspiracy theorists could reliably avoid looking stupid chasing dreams, everyone would be one. Unless literally every possible conspiracy theory on Pern happens to be true. Which canonically they totally are... ugh, canon!Pern, how I love/hate/adore/eyeroll/want to hug you, you big mess of contradictions and awesomeness.)

Though I guess a lot of harpers' tales would suddenly seem more plausible when the Ninth Pass began!

[silveradept]

Quite. The Harpers have no need of inventing tales - reality is more than strange enough to compensate.

Fic of the Benden Weyrleader going off on a bender, of sorts, trying to prove a conspiracy would be all sorts of fun to read, I think.

[chordatesrock]

It would be nice if fiction existed on Pern. Don't they fantasize about anything, ever?

*sigh* Now I wonder what incorrect idea F'lar could get behind in a fic... I mean, canon really, really does not help here.

[silveradept]

Fiction probably exists, but if the punishment delivered to Menolly for creating novel things while not being a Harper is typical, then fiction is spoken of only in hushed tones in dark corners, away from the ears of Harper and dragonrider alike.

Which could be what the Benden Weyrleader goes after, convinced of its existence, but never actually able to find - someone composing stories that aren't from Harpers.

[chordatesrock]

Well, that's a depressing thought. But I can't quite believe real people would react in that way.

(I mean, to be fair, I have that objection to a lot of canon!Pern...)

Can't think why F'lar would care about fiction. It seems beneath him to try to stamp it out, but irrelevant to prove its existence-- he doesn't seem to go around being curious about things that aren't politically or militarily useful...

Wait a minute. Have we ever seen F'lar have any feelings about anything that isn't either Lessa or his job? He used to be a womaniser, but evidently not anymore... he occasionally snarks, e.g. at F'nor about Canth eating a lot... and it's probably a mark of Anne's bad writing that I can't tell whether we're supposed to read him as a real workaholic who doesn't bother to have outside interests, or whether Anne just forgot to give him any. And other than that... he occasionally thinks mean, gossipy things about other people, and that's pretty much it.

[silveradept]

I think she was too busy making him the main character to show what he does in his downtime, or to give him downtime in the first place.

He might care about fiction for its ability to tell true things in the guise of a good story, and thus be chasing it in case it contained some sort of secret knowledge that isn't part of the Records.

[chordatesrock]

Oooh! So then he would be disappointed to find himself proven wrong... because every single story he investigates turns out to be true, *except* that fiction exists? Nothing fictional save the claim that there is some such thing as fiction?

That's meta, man!

[silveradept]

Sounds like a plot to me!

[chordatesrock]

Heh, it may be. I'd feel weird writing it, though. A fiction writer writing fiction where fiction is a fiction? (YO DAWG, I heard you like fiction so I made fiction fictional!) Particularly, a fiction writer writing something where fiction is basically the Holy Grail... I would feel like I was writing a paean to myself. That and I think that's a little too meta even for me.

[dray]

Sorry to crawl out of the woodworks; I picked up Dragonflight again on a whim the other day and went googling around to see if anyone else had thoughts on it, and was delighted to see that there were some folks talking about it recently!

I just wanted to say that I'd definitely enjoy reading about F'lar's misadventures with hints and portents of things that were totally unlikely to happen!

[silveradept]

Perhaps when I'm done giving it grief, I'll be ready to give it fixfic. But that shouldn't stop anyone else from going after it.

Also, hooray for a new commenter!