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1) So it turns out that the Yogi Cold Season Tea I've been drinking by the gallon has valerian as like the fourth ingredient. Possibly there is a reason why I have been feeling underwater and sedated! Namely, that I have been sedated.
2) I am reading one of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover anthologies, and I'm very curious about Darkover fandom now.
When I was a kid, and lived entirely on books that Zimmer Bradley had either written or edited, I never thought about how extraordinary it was that she published anthologies of fanfiction for her own canon. By today's fandom standards (which seems to be "Eek! The creator! Run and hide!") that's a crazy close relationship with one's own fandom, and feels very classic SF. What I think is especially weird and kind of cool / kind of claustrophobic is how she takes it upon herself to be the gatekeeper of an official fanon. For instance, she says in the introduction to Leroni of Darkover that there are things that she couldn't write about Darkover without losing her intellectual integrity - and then announces that this fan anthology specifically excludes feminist rants. I guess she covered that ground pretty thoroughly in Renunciates of Darkover, but man, I can't imagine that contemporary fandom wouldn't chafe at having what they can and can't circulate determined by the creator of the canon. I can only imagine that there must have been some underground fanzines circulating everything that Zimmer Bradley didn't allow space for in her fanon - or did the fact that there was an official fanon mean that people competed to get into it and abandoned fan-only publication?
So interesting. And hey, Fanlore actually answers these questions! You may bypass all the above wondering! Apparently Marion Zimmer Bradley's proximity to her fandom resulted in some legal tussles which are one of the reasons for the current author/fan divide! Thank you, Fanlore!
I am also realizing just why I found these books so satisfying as a teenager, because almost every single story is resolved by two gallant young men swearing their undying love for each other and then snuggling. Adorable. Also, there is sex pollen and marriage on the astral plane!
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phnelt is apparently up at an ungodly hour up there in Caribou Land reading one of those articles about how everyone on the internet is rude and therefore the internet fails at public discourse. (That is not an academic summary, but we've all read an article or two like that, haven't we?) We were talking about it, and seem to have agreed that incivility on the internet is something that can be designed for or against. Of course where people are transient and there's no way to build a reputation or form social bonds there's a lot of rudeness and possibly muggings - I know this has been well-established in offline communities, too, though I'm lazy and not going to find something peer-reviewed on it at this exact moment. But look at all of us in fandom, tied to one identity and some sockpuppets day after day! We improve our reputations in very tangible ways if we do good work and are helpful (or are mean in a funny way), and if we're dumbasses we get ignored or shunned. I just get excited, every so often, about how some combination of constructive central interests and good design seem to lead to basic civility, wank and all. And then I get annoyed when people want to write off the whole internet as the Land of Douchebaggery, instead of looking at it as a question of distinct areas of poor civic planning.
This does not keep me from wanting to smack 8 out of 10 youtube commenters upside the head, of course.
2) I am reading one of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover anthologies, and I'm very curious about Darkover fandom now.
When I was a kid, and lived entirely on books that Zimmer Bradley had either written or edited, I never thought about how extraordinary it was that she published anthologies of fanfiction for her own canon. By today's fandom standards (which seems to be "Eek! The creator! Run and hide!") that's a crazy close relationship with one's own fandom, and feels very classic SF. What I think is especially weird and kind of cool / kind of claustrophobic is how she takes it upon herself to be the gatekeeper of an official fanon. For instance, she says in the introduction to Leroni of Darkover that there are things that she couldn't write about Darkover without losing her intellectual integrity - and then announces that this fan anthology specifically excludes feminist rants. I guess she covered that ground pretty thoroughly in Renunciates of Darkover, but man, I can't imagine that contemporary fandom wouldn't chafe at having what they can and can't circulate determined by the creator of the canon. I can only imagine that there must have been some underground fanzines circulating everything that Zimmer Bradley didn't allow space for in her fanon - or did the fact that there was an official fanon mean that people competed to get into it and abandoned fan-only publication?
So interesting. And hey, Fanlore actually answers these questions! You may bypass all the above wondering! Apparently Marion Zimmer Bradley's proximity to her fandom resulted in some legal tussles which are one of the reasons for the current author/fan divide! Thank you, Fanlore!
I am also realizing just why I found these books so satisfying as a teenager, because almost every single story is resolved by two gallant young men swearing their undying love for each other and then snuggling. Adorable. Also, there is sex pollen and marriage on the astral plane!
3)
phnelt is apparently up at an ungodly hour up there in Caribou Land reading one of those articles about how everyone on the internet is rude and therefore the internet fails at public discourse. (That is not an academic summary, but we've all read an article or two like that, haven't we?) We were talking about it, and seem to have agreed that incivility on the internet is something that can be designed for or against. Of course where people are transient and there's no way to build a reputation or form social bonds there's a lot of rudeness and possibly muggings - I know this has been well-established in offline communities, too, though I'm lazy and not going to find something peer-reviewed on it at this exact moment. But look at all of us in fandom, tied to one identity This does not keep me from wanting to smack 8 out of 10 youtube commenters upside the head, of course.
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