Why I love remix culture: an illustration

[sholio]

So I wrote this story a couple of days ago for sga_flashfic; it's a futurefic, kidfic, with a Rodney/Jennifer/Ronon pairing.

xparrot had some problems with it (though I truly did not intend character-bashing or pairing-bashing, my story isn't especially friendly to John or to the John/Rodney pairing) so she wrote a sequel/tag/fixit which is just beautiful. She worries in her headers that she's overstepping bounds, fixing something that isn't meant to be fixed, but you know what? I don't think she's gone off at all from what I wrote; the original pairings are still intact, and the characterizations click with how I had envisioned the older versions of the characters with their newer, expanded set of responsibilities. John and Rodney continue to be their clueless, geeky, socially inept selves, albeit with a few more years behind them now. It's another chapter in the 'verse I started, one which picks up where I left off and quietly knits back together something I'd taken apart. I absolutely love stories that deal with changes in character relationships over time, and despite her concerns about taking it to a place I wouldn't go, I love that she went there. It left me with a warm glow, and it just makes me want to give fandom a big hug, because I wouldn't have written it, but I'm so happy that she did.

Comments

[winter-elf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, *uhm*, I'm afraid I agree totally with xparrot. Usually I love your stories... but .. I just... uhm. well. *sigh*

[sholio]

Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. But that's why the pairing is at the top of the story, not the bottom. I've always written a wide variety of themes and ideas in my fic, and I really don't see that changing in the future.

[snarkydame.livejournal.com]

I love that this fandom (or at least a good portion of it) is mature enough to understand that total agreement is completely unnecessary for respectful interaction. And I love that we can get this sort of thing -- one story directly inspiring a response, which, although it's inspired by a negative reaction, is neither intended nor taken as an attack on the other author or her views. It's just a response, much like we all have to the episodes of the shows we fan on -- like bouncing a concept from brain to brain, getting different views and angles each time.

I think both of these stories are lovely, and I think it's wonderful that two such different but equally talented authors took the time to exchange their visions of the story in such a beautiful way.

[sholio]

You know, ten years ago, when I first got into fandom, this is what I wanted it to be. I don't know if it was the fandoms I was in, or the fen I was around, or what -- but it feels like there's a lot more acceptance of this sort of remixing nowadays than there used to be back then. Which is how I always felt it should be, so basically ... I agree! And thank you! :)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the beautiful rec, and *hugs*!!

(you realize it's your fault anyway, for aiding & abetting getting me into this CRAZY SOUL-SUCKING fandom to begin with XPPPPP)

[sholio]

*snicker* It does suck one in, doesn't it?

[trystings.livejournal.com]

I want to apologize again for being an oversensitive sap and going on and on (and on and on and on) in the comments on flash_fic. *g*

Thank you for allowing others to play with your future characters and for reccing this great follow-up (and thank you, xparrot, for writing it!).

Your story gave an insightful look into the future from Rodney's point of view, and xparrot's follow-up gives Sheppard a chance to explain his feelings and I feel a lot happier now that they seem to have resolved some of their issues.

*knows it's only a tv show* :D

[sholio]

No need to apologize; I find it interesting to know what people think of my stories!

[sheron]

This is regarding to the other post (which has no comments on it) but I was wondering if you would consider appending "" to the end of your links from your site. Like so:

http://friendshipper.livejournal.com/155243.html?format=light&mode=reply

that way you can get the text sans formatting, and also it cuts off the comments so you get a true idea of how long the fic is.

I'm definetly going to be reading all the new fic that I've missed out on and I'm ashamed to admit that I've been trying to find the time to comment on "A Clear and Different Light" which I adored and just haven't found it yet, but this should give me incentive. :)

[sheron]

um, i was going to insert "?format=light&mode=reply" between those quotes, honest.

[sholio]

Awww, you don't owe us feedback on that, though it's always nice to have!

I'm a little puzzled by your requests -- not that I'd mind making the changes, but I'm puzzled by the ones you've asked for. Is there really that much difference between the regular default LJ formatting and the "light" formatting? Since I have my LJ set to the default, which pretty much looks like the light format except it's got the navbar at the top, I never thought there would be enough difference to bother. I certainly *can*, though; could I ask you why you prefer it that way?

As for the "mode=reply" part ... that, I've specifically been asked *not* to do by other readers (I used to have some of my links set that way). A lot of people don't like it because they click on the story wanting to read the comments along with the story, and then are annoyed by having to manually edit the URL in the browser to get the comments. You said that you wanted "a true idea of how long the fic is", but I give word counts on all my fics, so doesn't that give a much better idea than just eyeballing it in the browser window?

[lavvyan.livejournal.com]

A lot of people don't like it because they click on the story wanting to read the comments along with the story

Yeah, that. Plus, if an author links me straight to the comment box for their story, I'm a lot less inclined to oblige, when otherwise I might have left puddles of glee all over their journal.

[sheron]

Sorry it took me absolutely forever to reply to this comment.

First of all, I solved the problem by writing a little bookmarklet that let's me append the '?format=light&more=reply' to the end of the url, so I'm all good. (It will even remove #cutid1 stuff for me! heh)

However I did want to answer why I wanted this in the first place.

>format=light
>Is there really that much difference between the regular default LJ formatting and the "light" formatting?

I think it depends on the style you're using. S1 is different from S2 (completely different text style, S1 is tiny) and also often people have their own style embedded into the post. What I like about "light" formatting is just a good standard big font, black text on a white background, no ads, no graphics. That's all I usually want in a fic. You're right that sometime default LJ formatting is very close. I like the feeling like I'm reading all the fics in the same style; the consistency makes it easier to focus on the story for me.

>mode=reply
>A lot of people don't like it because they click on the story wanting to read the comments along with the story, and then are annoyed by having to manually edit the URL in the browser to get the comments.

Interesting. There's usually a 'read comments' link that switches the view to comments, just like the 'post comment' link adds mode=reply to the url.

Personally, I never want to see the comments to the story until I've read it. Partly it's also to protect myself against bias about the quality of the fic when I see that two people commented vs 50 people commented. I've had times where just seeing that a fic has not received a single review has turned me off from reading it because I kept looking for why people don't like it enough instead of being able to read the story. And vice versa with expectations for a highly commented on story. I also like to comment on a post after reading it before I find out what other people have said, but I'll usually check people's comments afterwards.

>You said that you wanted "a true idea of how long the fic is", but I give word counts on all my fics, so doesn't that give a much better idea than just eyeballing it in the browser window?

Believe me, I very much appreciate the word count. I wish everyone followed that format :)

Basically as I'm reading the story, I look at the scroll bar to see how long I have left. I'm often dissapointed if I see that it looks like I have a ways to go yet (50% through the screen), and then the story just wham and ends, because the rest of it was comments. Maybe it's a personal quirk :)

Anyway, my request is incosequential anyway since I have solved that problem for myself, but I wanted to reply so you know where I am coming from.

[sholio]

Ah! Thank you! I really appreciate you taking the time to explain (and I don't care that it's been awhile!) because I want to give people a good reading experience and this helps me do so. Obviously it's unique to everybody, but I would never have thought of a lot of this stuff. :)