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Crossposts: http://meridian-rose.livejournal.com/402034.html

There's a really nice piece about fanfiction here; it's worth reading in it's entirety but I'll give you what I think are the highlights. It starts by positing that fanfiction "is still the cultural equivalent of dark matter: it's largely invisible to the mainstream, but at the same time, it's unbelievably massive." It differs from most articles on fanfic by talking to professional writers who still write fanfiction, taking away the accusation that fanfiction is merely an amateur pursuit.

Naomi Novik, whose Temeraire novels are best sellers and have been optioned by Peter Jackson, who directed the Lord of the Rings movies, writes fan fiction. "Fanfic writing isn't work, it's joyful play," she says. "The problem is that for most people, any kind of writing looks like work to them, so they get confused why anyone would want to write fanfic instead of original professional material, even though they don't have any problem understanding why someone would want to mess around on a guitar playing Simon and Garfunkel."

Emphasis mine; this is why I get so annoyed at the 'lack of creativity' opposition to fanfic; every musician who only plays cover versions, every orchestra that only plays classical music, is as guilty of a lack of creativity as a fanfic writer. More so, I'd argue.

The reporter talks to Racheline Maltese and describes her as "38. She's an actor and a professional writer — journalism, cultural criticism, fiction, poetry. She describes herself as queer. She lives in New York City." Maltese's blog, Letters From Titan is well worth reading for her take on how the lines between media and real life can be blurred, on media representation, on queer culture. She's also on LJ:

rm, freely admitting to her fannish identity and to the fact that she writes not only what could be called 'professional meta' but fanfiction. Obviously, she's on the pro-fanfic side:

"To say that a story stops after we close a book is absurd," says Maltese. "To say that we can think certain things about a story or what might happen next in a story or what might have happened if someone had turned left instead of right but that we can't write them down is absurd."

And another blow to the 'lack of creativity' defence:

Up until relatively recently, creating original characters from scratch wasn't a major part of an author's job description. When Virgil wrote The Aeneid, he didn't invent Aeneas; Aeneas was a minor character in Homer's Odyssey whose unauthorized further adventures Virgil decided to chronicle. Shakespeare didn't invent Hamlet and King Lear; he plucked them from historical and literary sources. Writers weren't the originators of the stories they told; they were just the temporary curators of them. Real creation was something the gods did.

It also points out to those authors who handwring over their 'children' being kidnapped and abused by evil amateurs that:

A writer's characters are his or her children, but even children have to grow up eventually and do things their parents wouldn't approve of. "We don't own nonfictional people," Maltese says, "and at the end of the day, I don't think we can own fictional ones either."

This post and the above tumblr post are inspired by a conversation I had on Sunday.
Media means nothing. Anything beyond the text is imaginary to all 'normal people' and anyone else is just 'thinking too much'. Yes, I've had an encounter with a genuine Privilege Denying Dude. He thinks he doesn't have privilege because he's Welsh in England, and has dyslexia*. That he's a straight while cis male doesn't mean anyone treats him any different. Oh, and all those nasty affirmative actions are bullshit.**

Online discourse has made me somewhat more sensitive to my own privileges [and lack thereof; white but not male, for example]. The modules of my university education dealing with media made me more aware of text, subtext, representation and other constructs. Fandom has made me more aware and respectful of certain issues and approaches. To hear someone speak so blatantly against everything I've learned, against what I believe, what I know is true, what criticizes something so important to me – creative work, by this standard, is meaningless - is hurtful, and frustrating.

Attitudes do not come from nowhere. Your family, friends, education and religious beliefs all impact on what you believe, as do the media you consume be it books, television, radio shows, artwork, billboards and social network sites. To deny that there's any deeper meaning, that representation isn't important, to say art is utterly meaningless, is naive.

Sure, if you insist that if you listen to 'Alejandro' backwards, Gaga is saying 'My Lord' and it proves she's a satanic illuminati who's trying to take over the world***, I'm going to decide you're some sort of conspiracy theorist with too much time on their hands. But if you say that there's Cara/Kahlan subtext in 'Legend of the Seeker' and give me in-depth analysis - maybe with video clips, un-manipulated still pics, and other sources referenced – then I'll say, 'that's absolutely one way of seeing their relationship'. Because media has multiple levels of meaning, depending on who is viewing it and what lenses they are seeing it through.

For anyone wanting to learn a bit more, here are a few sources you might find useful:
And We Shall Call This Moff's law This is so important; it quotes Moff as saying [italics are my emphais]:

'First of all, when we analyze art, when we look for deeper meaning in it, we are enjoying it for what it is...Now, that doesn’t mean you have to think about a work of art. I don’t know anyone who thinks every work they encounter ought to only be enjoyed through conscious, active analysis......[but] Believe me, the person who is annoying you so much by thinking about the art? They have already considered your revolutionary “just enjoy it” strategy, because it is not actually revolutionary at all. It is the default state for most of humanity. So when you go out of your way to suggest that people should be thinking less — that not using one’s capacity for reason is an admirable position to take, and one that should be actively advocated — you are not saying anything particularly intelligent. And unless you live on a parallel version of Earth where too many people are thinking too deeply and critically about the world around them and what’s going on in their own heads, you’re not helping anything; on the contrary, you’re acting as an advocate for entropy.'

Powerful stuff.

Introduction to Representation GCSE level [up to sixteen years old] so is presented in a very easy to understand format

Why Media Representation Matters A short article on gender in media vs reality

White Privilege Backpack PDF file. An eye opener for those of use who get white privilege, and specifically mentions media representations featuring people of a particular race as being an example of privilege, along with affirmative actions, and everyday things like greetings cards and magazines.
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image by Magickal Graphics

With best wishes to you all. I hope you find something to be thankful for and to be hopeful about today.

February the second is the pagan festival of Imbolc [Imbolg]. This festival of candles and light marks the halfway point between Yule and the Spring Equinox and we start to see the first signs of Spring; In America the day is Groundhog Day, when the groundhog predicts if warm weather will prevail or if winter will persist for six more weeks. For our ancestors, Imbolc meant they had made it through the worst of the winter and thoughts could turn to planting crops and looking forward to a more plentiful food supply.

The Goddess Brighid [Brigid, Bride, etc] is celebrated. She is known for healing, smith craft, and poetry. Imbolc was incorporated into the Church calendar as Candelmas and Brighid became Saint Brigid, renowned for her healing gifts; many wells and springs are named after her.

It is also a festival of milk, since Imbolc derives from the Gaelic word "oimelc" which means "ewes milk". Herd animals have either given birth, or are about to birth, the first offspring of the year and hence have milk to give.

With its focus on renewal Imbolc is a good time to spring clean, or begin new projects.

Correspondences: Brighid's cross, candles, poetry, agricultural tools, smith craft, milk, renewal, purification,fertility, yellow, pink, green, Basil, Rosemary, Bay, Oak, Strawberry.

Those in the Southern Hemisphere observe not Imbolc at this time but Lammas/Lughnasadh, which is the first of the harvest holidays.

About.com has more information about Imbolc