Silver Adept (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silveradept) wrote2016-01-14 02:01 pm
silveradept) wrote2016-01-14 02:01 pm
Entry tags:
Fandom Snowflake 14 - Atomic Batteries to power, turbines to speed
In your own space, share your love for something fannish: a trope, cliché, kink, motif, theme, format, or fandom.
Where to start? (The Beginning.) I think I'm always going to have a soft spot for the newspaper comic style, even though I haven't regularly read any sort of comic, save Unshelved, xckd, and Girl Genius, all delivered to me, regularly. If I think about my comfort reads in comics, they tend to be slice-of-life style stories. What that life consists of can be plenty weird, as it is in Calvin and Hobbes, Ozy and Millie, Sinfest, early College Roomies From Hell!!! (the three exclamation points stand for quality), xkcd, Yotsuba&!, and Lucky Star, but it tends to be serial, slice-of-life, and drawn in a four-panel style with bigger sets on occasion. There's something about the format that's good for me, like it isn't demanding too much time, there's usually going to be a joke involved somewhere, and a lot of the subjects touched on there do so without sliding off into the darker places. (Not universally, of course - there are plenty of serious subjects that happen in strip form.) Maybe it's just my nostalgia filter being tripped, and comics in that style recall memories of a previous, happier, less responsibility-burdened time. Even as I was reading about Watterson battling his syndicate and dove headfirst into Dana Simpson's political spinoff (I Drew This), the adult concerns expressed in those places weren't as real as they are now, having lived without the protective shields put in place to make sure I could get to adulthood safely.
If I keep going like this, I'm probably going to harsh someone's squee about the things I've mentioned so far. Happier thoughts, happier thoughts, like the independent spirit on display in those comics. Calvin, Millie (and Ozy, on a much quieter delivery), Yotsuba, Konata, Ayamu, Chiyo, and most of the cast of these comics are doing their thing, regardless of social pressures. Those pressures, when presented, tend to take the form of comedy, even if it wouldn't be quite as funny now to watch a character obsess about their weight and others their cup size. And my fingers still wince in sympathy for Saki. None of the characters in the comics receive severe and permanent consequences for their decisions to be who they are. They might have sheep for rivals, and the visual metaphors might be a bit much from time to time, but their stories don't reflect the reality around them, just outside their universe, where the readers are.
I wonder if that's part of the draw of fanworks - to be able to set up the world in such a way where sometimes, everyone lives. Or gets the person they are happiest with, or finds their happily ever after, villains included. To build the world we want to see, fully realized, as a break or a counterweight to the world outside, which is nowhere near fully realized and still needs a lot of work.
Oy. Melancholy again. I like comedy, and to laugh, and clever wordplay and pratfalls, and my stories as a relief from the world outside, as Pratchettian little lies and big ones, and to see heroes defeat villains, for the reasons that are right to them.
I like my stories happy, because I've had more than enough of my fill of depression and anger and negative self-talk, and those things will just keep coming, so what I like in my stories is the ability to set that aside and pretend, even if for only a little while.
What I get fannish about, most of the time, is a world that isn't this one.
Where to start? (The Beginning.) I think I'm always going to have a soft spot for the newspaper comic style, even though I haven't regularly read any sort of comic, save Unshelved, xckd, and Girl Genius, all delivered to me, regularly. If I think about my comfort reads in comics, they tend to be slice-of-life style stories. What that life consists of can be plenty weird, as it is in Calvin and Hobbes, Ozy and Millie, Sinfest, early College Roomies From Hell!!! (the three exclamation points stand for quality), xkcd, Yotsuba&!, and Lucky Star, but it tends to be serial, slice-of-life, and drawn in a four-panel style with bigger sets on occasion. There's something about the format that's good for me, like it isn't demanding too much time, there's usually going to be a joke involved somewhere, and a lot of the subjects touched on there do so without sliding off into the darker places. (Not universally, of course - there are plenty of serious subjects that happen in strip form.) Maybe it's just my nostalgia filter being tripped, and comics in that style recall memories of a previous, happier, less responsibility-burdened time. Even as I was reading about Watterson battling his syndicate and dove headfirst into Dana Simpson's political spinoff (I Drew This), the adult concerns expressed in those places weren't as real as they are now, having lived without the protective shields put in place to make sure I could get to adulthood safely.
If I keep going like this, I'm probably going to harsh someone's squee about the things I've mentioned so far. Happier thoughts, happier thoughts, like the independent spirit on display in those comics. Calvin, Millie (and Ozy, on a much quieter delivery), Yotsuba, Konata, Ayamu, Chiyo, and most of the cast of these comics are doing their thing, regardless of social pressures. Those pressures, when presented, tend to take the form of comedy, even if it wouldn't be quite as funny now to watch a character obsess about their weight and others their cup size. And my fingers still wince in sympathy for Saki. None of the characters in the comics receive severe and permanent consequences for their decisions to be who they are. They might have sheep for rivals, and the visual metaphors might be a bit much from time to time, but their stories don't reflect the reality around them, just outside their universe, where the readers are.
I wonder if that's part of the draw of fanworks - to be able to set up the world in such a way where sometimes, everyone lives. Or gets the person they are happiest with, or finds their happily ever after, villains included. To build the world we want to see, fully realized, as a break or a counterweight to the world outside, which is nowhere near fully realized and still needs a lot of work.
Oy. Melancholy again. I like comedy, and to laugh, and clever wordplay and pratfalls, and my stories as a relief from the world outside, as Pratchettian little lies and big ones, and to see heroes defeat villains, for the reasons that are right to them.
I like my stories happy, because I've had more than enough of my fill of depression and anger and negative self-talk, and those things will just keep coming, so what I like in my stories is the ability to set that aside and pretend, even if for only a little while.
What I get fannish about, most of the time, is a world that isn't this one.