Mag7 ranting time

[graculus]

Jeez, I'm really ticked off about everything at the moment, or so it seems...



Am I the only one whose immediate response to the question 'how many AUs are there in the Mag7 universe?' is TOO FUCKING MANY!!!!!?

Jesus, people, what's the point? I mean, I can understand how the ATF universe came about and it's an almost-completely-logical extrapolation to bring the guys into the present day (yes, cycnus39 it's time for your patent 'why Ezra would never work for the FBI rant, form an orderly queue...") even though I hate with the passion usually reserved for the Tories of this world the way it utterly rips the heart from all the Ezra/Nathan angstorama that I love so well.

But other than that, what's the point of getting into a show and then blithely buggering off in a thousand different directions when there's still a shed-load of possibilities within the original premise? Is it completely illogical to assume that the reason people don't seem to be writing much fic at the moment (particularly OW fic) is that they're all off inventing their own little universes where Vin is a mutant cyber-were-raccoon and Ezra is a telepathic xeno-anthropologist with alien abduction memories?

And the juggernaut rolls on. I remember sitting down at Red Rose 18 months ago and brainstorming with Corb on this very subject and even then we managed to come up with about 35 AUs we knew were being written *off the top of our heads*. God knows how many there are now. It's not big and it's not clever.

Oh, and OW is *not* an AU, dumbasses.

Comments

[temaris.livejournal.com]

where Vin is a mutant cyber-were-raccoon and Ezra is a telepathic xeno-anthropologist with alien abduction memories

Hey, I think I read this one! *ducks*

Seriously, I think that some people are scared to write OW because they don't know the era well enough -- or think they don't, and some people don't write it because they actually don't *like* the warts and all versions of the Seven, and would much rather write/read about the shiny heroic AU versions who have token character flaws which are in the past/all lies and rumors/completely irrelevant/ignored when inconvenient.

And I have good news and bad news. I am writing at least three (fully non-AU, ie not LB or similar) OW stories. And you *still* won't want to read them because they all have JD as the protagonist. *g*

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Seriously, I think that some people are scared to write OW because they don't know the era well enough -- or think they don't, and some people don't write it because they actually don't *like* the warts and all versions of the Seven, and would much rather write/read about the shiny heroic AU versions who have token character flaws which are in the past/all lies and rumors/completely irrelevant/ignored when inconvenient.

Having read some utterly awful OW, I'd say that ignoring character flaws (or exaggerating them, that's the other favourite) isn't solely confined to AU fic. ;)

I think there's also an element of not wanting to be in a Western fandom, to be honest, which I think is slightly fuelled by a kind of covert snobbery - it would be okay for Mag7 to be a cop show, or some kind of fantasy thing, but horses and dust and stuff? Nope.

[temaris.livejournal.com]

I'd have to agree on the snobbery. Social realities of the OW and of now being what they were of course, the series itself severely bowdlerised the OW, but nonetheless.

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

I really don't understand the snobbery. Surely, having such an understanding of history that you can write a realistic OW fic would be impressive, not something to look down on?

I'm obviously missing something here...

[graculus.livejournal.com]

When was the last time you saw a cop show written as an AU where the protagonists were all cowboys? ;)

*hides her Man from UNCLE cowboy story which doesn't count really*

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay. Hmm. AU's in general don't tend to go backwards in history, more usually either are present day but different, or futuristic in some way. At least, from what I've seen. But I'm not all that fond of historical fiction, so the fact that I like Mag7 with cowboys is quite an achievement, really - it's not usually my thing.

There are a few cowboy fics in TS fandom, but I haven't seen many. Maybe it's a lack of imagination, or knowledge, or understanding. I don't know.

[temaris.livejournal.com]

It shouldn't be something to look down on, no. Nonetheless, there are many, many more AU stories than there are OW, and if the characters travel well, and the stories themselves travel well, then there must be something about the setting that stops people writing in it.

OW fiction (generally speaking, not just in M7) is a genre with a few outstanding works, and a reputation for cliched, formulaic works churned out rather like Harlequin romances. Possibly that works against it -- a kind of literary snobbery.

Alternatively, it's something to do with the mismatch of cultures. Modern US sensibilities seem to run to far more puritanical levels than the OW was -- I'm not saying that the whole world was more open minded a century ago, absolutely not. Merely that what was acceptable in terms of behaviour, attitudes towards the sanctity of life, and the dignity of man especially of those other than white Europeans speaking good, American accented English; attitudes towards cleanliness; the modern attitudes towards mechanical solutions rather than livestock (the range from finding horse drawn buggies outlandishly old-fashioned, to the willingness to eat meat as long as you don't have to catch and kill it yourself, or see it at any stage between 'cute' and 'cooked'. there is a whole world of differences that I doubt people really want to get into. Whether that's because they are anxious they will get it wrong, or because they aren't interested, or simply because they don't like the thought of having heroes who ride around on horses shooting, swearing and drinking; well, i don't know.

I know I was unwilling to write in the OW until someone assured me, quite definitely, that what I was writing in that setting worked fine for her as an American, for whom this was endemic to the culture. That reluctance, honestly, was about not wanting to get it wrong -- a kind of intellectual snobbery on my part, I suppose.

So when I agree that there is an element of snobbery in it, I am not merely making sweeping generalisations.*g* I am making personal observations and transforming them without benefit of anything more than statistics into sweeping generalisations.

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

"OW fiction (generally speaking, not just in M7) is a genre with a few outstanding works, and a reputation for cliched, formulaic works churned out rather like Harlequin romances."

I don't know much about cowboy films or books, never really seen many or read any, I don't think. I'm guessing they're much more prevelant in the US.

What you say about the puritanism of current USA does ring bells. When life literally depends on killing for survival, there's a lot less room for nancy rules about behaviourand such.

When you say you didn't want to write OW in case you got it wrong, that sounds more like lack of confidence to me, rather than snobbery. Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding you.

[green-key.livejournal.com]

I've only dabbled a bit in M7, but the AUs were the turnoff for me. I wanted something different than my usual fandoms, and OW was definitely different, but I began to read and suddenly I'm reading about two guys in a galaxy far, far away. wtf? I can read SW for that. I want M7 for the OW elements.

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, most of the time stuff is pretty well-labelled as to which universe it's in but unfortunately the AU stuff seems to be taking over, which is bizarre.

I'm with you on wanting the OW elements, since it was the show itself that brought me into wanting to read fic - I wonder how many people writing are actually fans of the fic rather than the show? At the recent convention I went to recently, one person actually admitted to not realising that ATF wasn't a real show, which is hardly surprising since I think her only exposure to Mag7 has been a passing acquaintance with fic.

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

*falls down laughing*

Boy, do I concur - and don't even get me started on the thousand AUs in which one character (usually Ezra) is inexplicably a young child that the rest of the seven have to look after. I've seen it done well once or twice, but...that's very much the rare exception.

You've just put me in the mood to finish up some good ol' fashioned Josiah/Ezra, complete with horses, farmers' almanacks, and late Victorian-era ideas about 'intimate friendships' between men :-)

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Boy, do I concur - and don't even get me started on the thousand AUs in which one character (usually Ezra) is inexplicably a young child that the rest of the seven have to look after.

And then he talks like no small child ever talked (the mock lisp speech makes me run away screaming like mock dialect does too) and is all cute and angsty and nobody has to deal with the actual angst and character development that Ezra goes through on the show. Because that would be Bad and too much hard work when you can write cutesypie pap and get your ego stroked for doing so. Or something. ;)

You've just put me in the mood to finish up some good ol' fashioned Josiah/Ezra, complete with horses, farmers' almanacks, and late Victorian-era ideas about 'intimate friendships' between men :-)

Yay! Go to! :P

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't get me started on this obsession with turning complex, intelligent, adult characters into saccharine, irritating, cutsie kids. Yuck. Why oh why does this urge strike so many writers? Why? Is there some pschological disorder that makes women (and it is women) want to infanticise men?

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

Oh goodness...I'd managed to block out memories of The Lisp. This phenomenon annoys me because I love Ezra for his shades of grey. I like that he's morally ambiguous - not in a mean way, but as an understandable side-effect of having been raised with the need to look out for number one. I like that even in the last episodes, he was still struggling with his conscience, redefining his own sense of right and wrong. This is character development, and it's a wonderful thing. By making Ezra a child and putting all the blame for his materialism, racism, and survival instincts solely on Maude, you strip away the internal tension that makes the character so fascinating.

Plus, yes, Ezra is a relatively well-spoken man with a propensity for tossing in the occasional five-dollar word. That doesn't mean he was a walking dictionary at age five. I don't need to read the word 'pwopensity' coming out of his mouth, thank you kindly. :-P

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Oh goodness...I'd managed to block out memories of The Lisp.

Oops. Sorry. ;)

This phenomenon annoys me because I love Ezra for his shades of grey. I like that he's morally ambiguous - not in a mean way, but as an understandable side-effect of having been raised with the need to look out for number one. I like that even in the last episodes, he was still struggling with his conscience, redefining his own sense of right and wrong. This is character development, and it's a wonderful thing.

See, a lot of people don't do moral ambiguity so they don't grasp how much progress Ezra makes over the period of the show - the struggles he goes through affect everything about him and how he's perceived by the others (Nathan in particular, imo, though I'm trying not to bang my favourite pairing's drum too much here) and if you discard that, what are you left with?

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

I've definitely seen the mutant cyber-were-raccoon thing. Oh, hang on, wasn't it a ground squirrel, not a raccoon? *scratches head*

I really like the ATF AU in fic, assuming the fics are well-written, keep the characters as they were in the OW, and have an interesting plot. But then, I like the OW fics as long as they're well-written, keep the characters... Well, you get the idea. I have no idea where all this werewolf / vampire shit comes from. None.

The thing I like in Mag7 is that the AUs are usually open, which has led to some fabulous ATF fics. Of course, it's led to some utter tripe as well, but then that's what you expect from fic: a pyramid with utter tripe as the huge bottom layer, good stuff in the middle, and a limited few excellent at the top.

But yes, if nobody wrote another Vin-the-werewolf-sucks-Chris'-blood-to-survive fic, ever, it'll be too soon. Blech.

[blktauna.livejournal.com]

Darling, it's just like Pros... They like the lads but can't be buggered to learn about their world... Don't they get that the lads are a product of their world and when you remove them from it, you lose a large chnk of what makes them, them...

[graculus.livejournal.com]

But that would require learning the difference between a Granada and a Cortina and that would be Too Much Effort. ;)