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I think I have this figured out now.
In 1990, someone wrote a Real Ghostbusters fan fiction called "Breathless Anticipation", in which Peter is hospitalized and hooked up to a breathing machine because he's cursed by a ghost that steals his breath. This triggered the feels of other ladies who, at the time, were in their 30s, and so THEY glomped onto this story and started writing their own tearjerker stories where Peter is hospitalized and injured and sick. They weren't fans of the source material (a few of them I've talked to refuse to touch the show itself), they were only fans of THAT FIC. The story could have been about the Sentinel, or Star Trek, or My Little Pony or the Muppet Babies, and the result would have been the same. Only these ladies insist on calling themselves a "fandom" of Real Ghostbusters.
Uh, no. Refusing the canon material, refusing to watch the show, eschewing how the characters were intended to be, acknowledging fan fiction only, and reimagining things from the ground up to tailor to your ideas isn't being a fan of something. I'm not exactly sure WHAT'S that called, but it sure as heck isn't fandom.
But that's just me. What do you guys think? What, to you, defines being a fan of something?
In 1990, someone wrote a Real Ghostbusters fan fiction called "Breathless Anticipation", in which Peter is hospitalized and hooked up to a breathing machine because he's cursed by a ghost that steals his breath. This triggered the feels of other ladies who, at the time, were in their 30s, and so THEY glomped onto this story and started writing their own tearjerker stories where Peter is hospitalized and injured and sick. They weren't fans of the source material (a few of them I've talked to refuse to touch the show itself), they were only fans of THAT FIC. The story could have been about the Sentinel, or Star Trek, or My Little Pony or the Muppet Babies, and the result would have been the same. Only these ladies insist on calling themselves a "fandom" of Real Ghostbusters.
Uh, no. Refusing the canon material, refusing to watch the show, eschewing how the characters were intended to be, acknowledging fan fiction only, and reimagining things from the ground up to tailor to your ideas isn't being a fan of something. I'm not exactly sure WHAT'S that called, but it sure as heck isn't fandom.
But that's just me. What do you guys think? What, to you, defines being a fan of something?
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Date: 2014-08-10 12:52 am (UTC)From:Hurt/comfort is indeed a genre and, when it's played for character development, can be interesting, but to latch onto a fandom and try to claim it as something you're part of, just because of a h/c fic you enjoyed reading is a little idiotic, I think.
Now I am starting to understand where the term "fake geek girl" comes from, it's probably people who call themselves part of a fandom, when they aren't even fans of the source material, just because they liked a piece of fan fiction. Ugh...
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Date: 2014-08-10 02:03 am (UTC)From:Just...argh!
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Date: 2014-08-10 02:19 am (UTC)From:Some twisted crap can be good, but not without knowing how the characters should behave as a result to the twisted crap (the post I just made about Ray in IDW's comic series is pretty twisted, but at least, people are in character for it, and Burnham knows the source material REALLY well).
Huge beef of mine is all that smarmy stuff and the characters being so out-of-character that I'm spending the whole time reading the fic, thinking things like: Egon's not a mushy/merry man... Nope, Peter would NOT take that shit sitting down and he'd crank the sarcasm up to 11... Ray is bouncy and excitable, yes, but he's not a hyperactive 4-year-old having just downed a large can of Red Bull... and so on.
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Date: 2014-08-10 02:32 am (UTC)From:Yes, he likes cartoons, and yes he loves what he does for a living. But at the same time, Ray has a shit ton of wisdom and discipline and maturity under his belt. This is why his character works so well; his life has the perfect balance of fun and mature wisdom and intelligence, that he's able to enjoy everything and still get all the work done. He's childlike in his enthusiasm, yes. But he's not naive or stupid or immature. He's incredibly smart, and is an amazing member of the Ghostbusting team.
As for the stories, I usually get to a point where things get too gushy or OOC for me...and then I imagine Peter bursting in and hollering, "I wouldn't act like THAT!!!! THIS IS STUPID!!" while grabbing the story, and ripping it shreds. XD
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Date: 2014-08-10 02:55 am (UTC)From:Egon's my favourite, but Ray comes in close second... ♥
Anything OOC bugs me the hell out, and I wind up stopping reading. LOL!
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Date: 2014-08-10 02:57 am (UTC)From:In the comics, my favourite characters are Janine and then probably Winston. Though Egon is definitely amusing. Ray is too, only I always hear John Goodman's voice in my head whenever I read him. :)
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Date: 2014-08-10 03:25 am (UTC)From:On Livejournal, there was the user nesmith who started a multi-chapter movie-verse fan fic on the community called crossthestreams that was very promising to be very good, only to abandon it after four chapters, which made me very sad, lol.
I don't generally recommend his stuff because I sometimes find the characterizations often lapse into out-of-character territory at least slightly, and the guy sometimes gets on my nerves, because he tried to meddle with how Burnham was writing his comic, but Fritz Baugh's stuff on his site over at ectozone.com is pretty epic (in the sense that there is a lot of it, and it all has its own continuity), and you'd have stuff to read for ages. There is no smarm and no slash on that site. I won't touch the other Franchises fic with a ten foot pole (like Ghostbusters: West Coast Division) though because, while I don't necessarily mind self-inserts when well-written, if I am reading a Ghostbusters fan fiction, it's because I want to read about Stantz, Spengler, Venkman, Zeddemore and other actual characters in the actual source material, not a completely separate team that has nothing to do with stuff I've watched or read in the case of the comics.
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Date: 2014-08-10 04:35 am (UTC)From:I'll look for her gen stuff though. That is more within my comfort zone. :)
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Date: 2014-08-10 01:57 pm (UTC)From:Her gen stuff is good. :)
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Date: 2014-08-10 04:08 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2014-08-12 12:00 am (UTC)From:I tolerate it not because it don't care about the show/theme fandoms that get stomped on, but because people who are willing to go outside their usual experiences to explore something are exposed to a broader world. As an example, a lot of bronies are fans of the fandom, not the show -- but by being exposed to the show, they gain by osmosis some of the themes within it; and FiM is deliberately designed to expose people to lessons on making and keeping friends, and treating other people with compassion... which leads over the decades to fewer monsters in the real world, as long as the show never quite jumps the shark to become unaware self-parody.
Now, Ghostbusters (any variant) isn't as much about a particular social theme, so much as a framework on which stories can be built. But it's still a major fandom worth thinking about as a vehicle for story as such.
And humans think in stories.. so the stories you tell matter, even when you're just spilling your metaphorical guts on the page.
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Date: 2014-08-12 12:23 am (UTC)From:Ghostbusters, falling under sci-fi comedy with all its technobabble and the technology attached to it as well as the humour of it all, kind of needs that stuff on top of correct characterization to work in fan fic. Now, fic with darker themes can work as well, since we're talking about a theme of paranormal investigators. Most of the slice-of-life fan story will include mentions of equipment upkeep or monitoring and/or talk of the paranormal, even in passing. On top of that, if it's Real Ghostbusters-based, there will usually be at least a short appearance by Slimer. As long as fan fic writers realize that their work is not going to please everybody, they can write what they will, but at the same time, they shouldn't blow a fuse when people call them out on not giving a damn about the source material. ;)
I just remembered, back in my Lord of the Rings fandom days, that there was a whole faction of fic writers who were called "Frodo Healers" who basically solely wrote fan fiction in which Frodo was ill (anything from regular viruses to food poisoning, and I am not joking) or injured and had to be taken care of. Usually, it was set between his childhood and his 33rd birthday, but sometimes, post-War of the Ring, but pre-Grey Havens, since Frodo always remained touched by the Black Breath. There were scores of that stuff online, and holy shit was it ever bad!
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Date: 2014-08-12 01:22 am (UTC)From:Anyway, the younger one, Blair, has been coddled and smarmed over, and looked after by all these fangirls to the point where his HEARTBEAT is a sentient thing. It's really weird. I think if anyone ever did that with Peter, I'd have to start beating people with their own word processors.
As it is, I had someone get in my face at Mediawest because I said that Peter was a cartoon character. Thing is...HE IS! And the beauty of RGB is that the premise and such were lax enough so that Peter could do cartoony things like break the fourth wall or have his eyes bug out like a Tex Avery character. He was pretty much Pinkie Pie's forerunner in that respect.
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Date: 2014-08-12 02:49 am (UTC)From:Oh my...
Okay, what, someone got upset because RGB!Peter is a cartoon character? Really? Wow, someone needs a reality check (not you, dear, THEM!). Even movie-verse Peter is a movie character, they aren't real (but I love stumbling upon Twitter and Tumbler RP accounts of the guys, oh, my it's so much fun!), and they do fictional character things, whether animated or not. In the words of one Dr. Ray Stantz: WOW!
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Date: 2014-08-12 02:56 am (UTC)From:I've been all 4 Movie GBs on Twitter though. They're hilarious!!
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Date: 2014-08-12 03:05 am (UTC)From:I also follow @BillMurray which does state it's a parody account, but whoever is behind it is hilarious, and I love it!