I just wanted to say, it means so much to me that you are still willing to beta read all the stuff I dumped on you. I imagine that it might be quite sad and painful, on top of various real life responsibilities.Â
Iâve been thinking at lot lately about inspiration and how it related to canon. (warning, this is going to be an endless tangent)Â
I have a lot of stuff left that was already finished or close to finished, that I will post, but Iâm not going to lie, there is probably a story or too, that would have had a higher chance of getting finished if Karamel had ended on a more feed-good note. And that is aside from the of course things like people moving on from the fandom if there is no more canon content (though I hope at least some peeps are wiling to at least stick around for He-Man since at is like only 2 weeks from now or so?).Â
Anyway, about our relationship with canon. In a lot of ways, I do think that of course it feels good and rewarding to feel like one is in agreement with the writers about something, on the same page with them.Â
But Iâve also been second guessing if maybe we place too much importance on it. Writers are powerful people outside of fandom, they are supposed to have a more professional point of view, so of course validation from them feel bigger.Â
But in the end, they are also just people. People have different tastes and priorities and opinions and worldviews. Fro me to lose sleep over it is as pointless as losing sleep over why that song in a hit and that one isnât, why that movie is tearing up the box office and that other one isnât, why that celebrity is a star and that maybe more talented one isnât. Or in a more serious area, why this politician or political party is getting more votes.Â
Yes, those things are important, but at the same time, taking each incident too personally is just draining and bad for the soul. You canât go into the world and expect everybody to share your opinion instantly (whether it is because of various things that are unfair things in society (like sex sells, society is racist or âpeople who are willing to make a media circus out of themselves get more attentionâ for artists for example) or just genuinely matters of different tastes, you can just live by your opinion and speak up for it. Most of the time itâs not going to work and even when it does work, itâs not going to work very quickly.Â
Anyway, I feel I have just had a lot of experience with media that was of very different quality.Â
For example, Frank Herbertâs first Dune book is one of my favorite scifi books of all time. The second and third book are kind of readable, everything beyond that gets really weird and then there are the additional material by less talented writers that are completely pointless.Â
The fact that everything past the first book is of varying quality however does not change my love for the book itself.Â
Similarly, I read comics and I feel like there itâs very normal to enjoy just âa runâ, a storyline, a particular year of a character, then for the next three years you go âwtf is this, this makes me want to stab my eyes outâ. Because you have the same characters written and being interpreted by so many completely different artists and writers.Â
TV shows suffer that as well. For example, while it had its moments, I donât think Vampire Diaries was every really a good show again after Kevin Williamson left. And books could be written of âpromising first season, completely goes off the railâ.Â
Anyway, because I have so much experience with really flawed canons, I feel like what I have taken from it is that you have to zero in on the good parts. And the parts that werenât just good, but that had that special spark that ignited fan behavior in you. (Though I feel like fan behavior is often particularly attracted to promising but flawed media, promising enough to spark the imgination, but not so flawless that you donât feel like you could ever add to it) .Â
I guess what Iâm trying to say is: I think itâs normal to love inspiration and feel downtrodden. In the end, hope is a powerful motivation (though other motivators like anger or perfectionism of course also exist). I just donât think it should ever be a question of it feeling wrong, as if we needed permission from the creators to write fanfiction or interpret the story in a certain way.Â
At the same time, I donât think people should pressured to create (or comment) either, if they are blue. Like, I know I want to post all the stuff that I have lying around. And Iâm at peace that itâs pretty much my own fault that because Iâm so slow finishing stuff that by the time I post it, I doubt many people will still feel like commenting or discussing (the part what I enjoy the most about the process). But even I am not sure whether I will write anything beyond trying up the loose ends of mostly finished stuff after this week.Â
(though I have to say, big kudos to people who can, itâs kind of inspiring to look at the AO recent fics and find people still writing things for concluded canons like X-Files or the original Harry Potter books)
I do want to encourage all Karamel writers who are feeling blue to just post their unfinished stuff. Just make a story on A03Â âUnfinished Karamel Snippet(s)â or something like that and post whatever you got. I realize, it probably wonât be very rewarding, because just like you are feeling too down to write, thereâs probably a lot of people who feel too down to read and comment. But I genuinely think you should stil do it and it would be a fun thing to preserve for posterity.Â