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May. 17th, 2016 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iniquiticitysome notes on fanfiction and characterization
alexander hamilton characterization meta below, feat the writing of @jonahryan, & @scioscribe, which came out of me writing ironflint and then going back to greenhouses and having emotions whiplash.
so after fucking around with ironflint for a solid ten days, i went back to writing greenhouses and we’re like a super fucking confused feelings-y part of the story (i’m a little head of what i’m posting, but not by too much…), and it kind of got me thinking about how fanfiction is… really great? like, literally my favorite part of fandom is the fantastic variety of interpretations of the same character traits in different situations and different compliments and characters. like, literally the whole point of fanfiction is to avoid being prescriptivist, isn’t it? like, if we start with source material, you have one version of a character. becuase i’m me, we’ll just go with Hamilton. You have Hamilton. But in Hamilton fanfiction, you have 500 different Hamiltons! You have ten different ways to review events and character traits! The thread of the character is the same, yes, but it’s like saying all cakes are the same becuase they involve eggs, flour, water, butter, etc. you have red velvet cakes, you have tira misu cakes, you have cheesecakes, you have buttercream cakes… all cakes are good! prescriptivism is saying “Ok, the original cake, vanilla cake, is acceptable. And also, so is red velvet cake. All other cakes are bad.” Like, why would you only double the amount of cakes you could eat, when you could eat 500 cakes? You will probably eventually get a disgusting cake made with quinoa and broccoli, but think of the 499 cakes you ate and it was worth that one really disgusting cake. and there’s gotta be someone who likes quinoa and broccoli cake.
Like, this is my favorite thing. so here’s an example.
for the purposes of this post, let’s assume we all agree about these traits about alexander hamilton.
he is ambitious.
he works very hard to shape his ideas into reality
his big mouth gets him into trouble, and he’s not always best at wiggling out of it.
in original canon, these points look like this:
out of nothing, he becomes a war hero and treasury secretary.
he had new and comprehensive ideas about government and financial policy, which he explained at length
the reynolds pamphlet was a thing.
now let’s shake these traits up and write something the same, and different.
from shit blogger, he is talented, lucky and hard-working enough to go from bodyman to policy director and (eventually) campaign manager
he shapes and grows the political events relevant to him and his boss with his opinions
he gets hopelessly tangled up in a blackmail web with political enemies (that he requires some assistance out of)
or! let’s remove him from politics entirely!
from damaged foster kid, he becomes executive assistant to an extremely powerful person
he seduces this person into a sexual relationship with him
however, sometimes he bites off more than he can chew by pushing the right buttons too hard
or you you know what! we can even remove him from this power dynamic:
he works himself so politically deep he is placed in the witness protection program
despite the need to keep him a secret, he still creates a twitter account
he endangers a senator’s son in an internet relationship
the three characters in these stories are insanely different, in different circumstances, with different problems and plots and stories, but they all follow this same thread, and they’re all amazing, and i love it. these are all valid alexander hamiltons and it’s all very lovely.
that’s your characterization meta of the day.
if your interpretation of the above is “writing a pedophilic character is ok,” and you share it on this post, i will reply with a bunch of gangbang porn.
alexander hamilton characterization meta below, feat the writing of @jonahryan, & @scioscribe, which came out of me writing ironflint and then going back to greenhouses and having emotions whiplash.
so after fucking around with ironflint for a solid ten days, i went back to writing greenhouses and we’re like a super fucking confused feelings-y part of the story (i’m a little head of what i’m posting, but not by too much…), and it kind of got me thinking about how fanfiction is… really great? like, literally my favorite part of fandom is the fantastic variety of interpretations of the same character traits in different situations and different compliments and characters. like, literally the whole point of fanfiction is to avoid being prescriptivist, isn’t it? like, if we start with source material, you have one version of a character. becuase i’m me, we’ll just go with Hamilton. You have Hamilton. But in Hamilton fanfiction, you have 500 different Hamiltons! You have ten different ways to review events and character traits! The thread of the character is the same, yes, but it’s like saying all cakes are the same becuase they involve eggs, flour, water, butter, etc. you have red velvet cakes, you have tira misu cakes, you have cheesecakes, you have buttercream cakes… all cakes are good! prescriptivism is saying “Ok, the original cake, vanilla cake, is acceptable. And also, so is red velvet cake. All other cakes are bad.” Like, why would you only double the amount of cakes you could eat, when you could eat 500 cakes? You will probably eventually get a disgusting cake made with quinoa and broccoli, but think of the 499 cakes you ate and it was worth that one really disgusting cake. and there’s gotta be someone who likes quinoa and broccoli cake.
Like, this is my favorite thing. so here’s an example.
for the purposes of this post, let’s assume we all agree about these traits about alexander hamilton.
he is ambitious.
he works very hard to shape his ideas into reality
his big mouth gets him into trouble, and he’s not always best at wiggling out of it.
in original canon, these points look like this:
out of nothing, he becomes a war hero and treasury secretary.
he had new and comprehensive ideas about government and financial policy, which he explained at length
the reynolds pamphlet was a thing.
now let’s shake these traits up and write something the same, and different.
from shit blogger, he is talented, lucky and hard-working enough to go from bodyman to policy director and (eventually) campaign manager
he shapes and grows the political events relevant to him and his boss with his opinions
he gets hopelessly tangled up in a blackmail web with political enemies (that he requires some assistance out of)
or! let’s remove him from politics entirely!
from damaged foster kid, he becomes executive assistant to an extremely powerful person
he seduces this person into a sexual relationship with him
however, sometimes he bites off more than he can chew by pushing the right buttons too hard
or you you know what! we can even remove him from this power dynamic:
he works himself so politically deep he is placed in the witness protection program
despite the need to keep him a secret, he still creates a twitter account
he endangers a senator’s son in an internet relationship
the three characters in these stories are insanely different, in different circumstances, with different problems and plots and stories, but they all follow this same thread, and they’re all amazing, and i love it. these are all valid alexander hamiltons and it’s all very lovely.
that’s your characterization meta of the day.
if your interpretation of the above is “writing a pedophilic character is ok,” and you share it on this post, i will reply with a bunch of gangbang porn.