I've found some movieverse stories I've really liked, and I've gotten some nice feedback (I'm especially appreciative of the people who took the risk of writing to a complete stranger and fandom newbie with constructive criticism). Still, I'm a little surprised at how small and quiet the Movieverse fandom has turned out to be. I distinctly recall the fandom being one of the bigs after the first movie was released, and for a good bit afterwards, but I checked xmenmoviefanfic and in May 2003--when the second film was released, which should have brought a flood of fic crashing down like Alkali Lake after the dam burst--they had only about 175 posts. By comparison, L3 in that time had about 120, and L3 is definitely not the biggest list in the SV fandom *and* is fic-only, which XMMFF is not.
What happened? Most people seem to have liked X2 as much or more than the original (usually more--and I completely agree with them!), so it's not simply a case of a stinky sequel offering no inspiration. Was it that the fandom was built on Wolverine/Rogue, and X2 offered very little in that direction? Possibly...but is the W/R claim really accurate? Was it the lack of any compelling romance with which to build the mounds of schmoop on which most large fandoms rest? To my eye, the two most compelling and potentially romantic relationships in the film were Charles/Erik and Erik/Mystique. One involves two older people, something for which your average romancer tends to have little enthusiasm, and the other involves an older person and a determinedly nonhuman-looking person, another sticking point. Logan/Jean, again, was kept subplotty, and Jean is too beautiful, adult, and intelligent to appeal to rather than threaten the fic-writing crowd as an avatar (speaking very generally here!). Some determined slashers seem to have made a go of John/Bobby, which comes closest to fitting the slash ideal relationship, but they actually had very few lines together in the film, which limits the pairing (wait til X3, though...!). Are there flaws in the fandom's infrastructure that have discouraged expansion? I was startled to learn that the one fandom-wide archive had very nearly ceased to be, and that even now there's no autoarchive. But it's pretty rare these days for supply not to follow demand quickly when it comes to archives.
Or...what? These are observations from the outside, of course. What do people who've been *in* the fandom for a while think? Am I insane and it's actually quite a big, active fandom? Are there other reasons? Anyone? Miss P.?
I'm new to the fandom too, and thus can't really answer your questions, but I can echo your surprise. I was wondering about the surprising dearth of new fic myself. Even the x_slash community on lj is relatively quiet the last few weeks. dry_ice, the John/Bobby community is hopping and I have to agree with you that that's probably because it's the most typical slash-friendly relationship in the sequel. I can't help wondering if part of this lack of fic is because some of the most interesting (in my mind) points off of which to base fics aren't necessarily slash-y in nature. For instance, I haven't seen one story exploring Bobby's frame of mind regarding his family after they reject him. This is ripe with possibility, but nobody seems to have touched on it (including myself, and I'm speaking as someone who was incredibly intrigued with the younger characters in this movie, far more so than the older ones). Is there a serious bias towards only writing stories that have slash relationships as the central focus (okay, I admit, I'm guilty of this myself, so far)? Is it because many of the writers new to the fandom are relatively inexperienced either as writers or as slash writers, and because of that are just ignoring other possible subjects? It seems to me that the only stories I've read that even attempt to go beyond the PWP/typical romance mold are those done by writers whose names I recognize from elsewhere: you, Te; or people who I recognize from the first wave of XMM fandom like Minisinoo.
Not that this answers your questions, just my two cents.
Posted by: Serial Karma at June 16, 2003 11:35 AMOh man. For *me*, X2 lacked a satisfying emotional throughline. I dislike Jean Grey. Immensely. So having the emotional climax of the film rest on her was... dissatisfying for me. Cutting Scott out of the picture altogether was dumb, as there was no reason (other than my own belief -never really supported onscreen, though comics-knowledge helps) to believe that he should have been as devastated as he was by her death. So while *I* felt for Scott, because I like him and believe he loved her very much, there was really no *evidence* of it in the movie itself, nothing to support the huge emotional breakdown.
I won't even get into the ridiculousness of Logan getting that emotional over her. Because I loathe the whole Logan/Jean set up. I think it's stupid and I hate that they made her say, "Don't do this to me" and then that line about "the good guy".
If there had been more Scott/Jean earlier in the film, I probably would have felt the emotional arc worked.
As for me, personally, I'm burned out on XMM. I was slogging on as one of the few quality Logan/Rogue writers for a very long time, and it's hard to be that alone and sustain fannish interest for 3 years. Especially considering how little the sequel gave us of any sort of Logan/Rogue interaction.
Whatever anyone thinks of their relationship (romantic/platonic/familial), it was *the* central relationship in the first movie, and therefore very easy to write about.
Charles/Erik and Erik/Mystique are both fascinating, but I don't have the interest in XMM currently to write or even read much of them. I think the first is difficult to do well because most fans don't have the capacity to write either Charles or Erik as more than two-dimensional characters, and I find fandom tends to skew younger when choosing its BSOs. Erik/Mystique is obviously not slash, technically, and well, there is a (not-so-)subtle bias against het in many areas of fandom at large these days. And again, Erik is a hard character to write.
Bobby/St. John is... eh. Aaron Stanford looks way too much like Vincent Kartheiser (Connor on Angel) for me to like him, though I am a closet pyromaniac myself, and I adore Bobby in almost all incarnations. I think I'm sadly OTP on Bobby/Hank.
Bobby/Rogue has possibilities with both John and Logan lurking on the edges of Bobby's and Rogue's hearts, respectively.
But yeah, I'm all written out. I have sweet HP men to play with now (and I do mean *men*, not schoolage boys) and new canon that I hope doesn't disappoint five days away.
I can't speak for other people. There's a whole mess of stupid fandom politics that I could get into about the Logan/Rogue portion of the fandom, but meh, those people aren't worth the time or the effort.
Posted by: victoria p. at June 16, 2003 12:30 PMI assume you're talking about XMMFF re: the autoarchive issue. Both XMMFF (and the WRFA as well) do have autoarchiving capabilities in place, but I am reluctant to make it available.
If I ever do, it will most likely exist in a format where I approve the stories before they go live.
I'm...torn...on the autoarchiving issue. Mostly because I'm opposed to spending my hard-earned money hosting utter crap, and I suspect that autoarchiving will increase the crap ratio by about 2,000%.
On a related note, I find it interesting that you mentioned that as an issue. It wasn't my understanding that *not* having an archive that autoarchived was a sign of languishing fandom. I guess I didn't realize that had become a standard in fandom, so that does give me food for thought on the issue.
The Crap Factor still worries me, though.
Posted by: Devil Doll at June 16, 2003 09:30 PMDD: It's not so much that it's a sign of a languishing fandom, as that having one, I think, tends to encourage fandom growth. Removing that layer of editorial scrutiny seems to encourage a lot of people. Which, yes, means a lot more junk, but, let's face it, *any* large fandom is founded on a big pile of dull and unreadable stories.
Posted by: Sarah T. at June 17, 2003 04:19 AMOh, but P.S.!
I do believe the new eFiction PHP autoarchive module allows for preapproval of postings. At least, that was originally one of the planned features, I think.
Posted by: Sarah T. at June 17, 2003 02:30 PMYes, eFiction does allow for pre-approval of stories, if the admin so chooses. Also allows them to set specific authors to have their stories automatically okayed, so you can let some authors' stories automatically be okayed, and still view all the other crap first ;) Check out the script here: http://orodruin.sourceforge.net I'm currently working on features for the next version, so if there's something you're specifically interested in the script having, now's the time to tell me.
To get more on topic...I've noticed a dearth of stories in the X-fandom as well. I ascribed it to my being out of things for the past year or two, and that my old haunts were just dying off, like all sites seem to after a while, but your ideas above are intriguing. Truth be told, my specific interest is in Wolverine pairings (preferably not with Rogue, though, and as victoria p. hinted at, that's been a hot button issue for a while for some people), and there just hasn't been much that I've seen, at least compared to a couple of years ago.
Posted by: Rivka at June 17, 2003 05:39 PM"It's not so much that it's a sign of a languishing fandom, as that having one, I think, tends to encourage fandom growth."
Ah, I follow.
That's a factor I had not considered, as I've been under the impression that archives are kind of the end of the line, so to speak. From a writer's POV, it's my understanding that 99% of the FB one receives for a story comes from (previously) lists and (currently) LJ. I assume this is due to ease of FBing, as the reader can just click and reply right after reading the story.
(Which is now the case at both the XMMFF and the WRFA archives, so I suppose now we'll see if click/reply makes a difference and encourages more FB from archive readers.)
Uh...where was I? Archives. And perhaps this it totally old-fashioned, and hints at my fannish age, but I always kind of thought that archives weren't were you *started*. There's no interaction there, no chance to meet and rub shoulders with other writers.
All that aside, I've noticed that, in XMM at least, there doesn't seem to be much interest in being archived. The incidents I'm basing this on could simply be a result of simple rude behavior and over-abundance of ego, but it seems to me that a lot of people just don't care about being in an archive.
If they can't be bothered to perform a simple 10 second interaction with me, I wonder if they'd bother to take the time to autoarchive their own stories.
"Removing that layer of editorial scrutiny seems to encourage a lot of people. Which, yes, means a lot more junk, but, let's face it, *any* large fandom is founded on a big pile of dull and unreadable stories."
Absolutely true. It's not so much the existence of the crap I'm opposed to, as the part where I pay for it to be online.
Still on the fence. Bree tells me the autoarchiving is ready to go, and we've tested the approval process blah blah blah. For now I'm using the excuse that I'd rather concentrate on getting the older stories in the new database.
Posted by: DD at June 21, 2003 09:32 AMWell, I'd imagine each fandom has something of its own dynamic. It's not so much that you get more feedback from archives (because I don't think you do, actually), as that you give people coming into the fandom the impression that it's a big, thriving fandom and they can jump in anytime with no one judging them (and without having to make friends with any/crack the atmosphere of a list). It reduces the social investment required to join a fandom to basically nil. I feel that makes it easier for people.
Posted by: Sarah T. at June 21, 2003 12:15 PMThis is a comment on a rather old entry. My apologies...
Why are there not more X2 fic? I've wondered that, too. I don't think X2 was the sort of story that encourages fanfic in quite the same way as X1. There's a lot of John/Bobby and Bobby/Rogue and even Rogue/John, and also fic about Ororo/Kurt and various BH pairings, there's the requisite "Scott grieves" stories (of which I've committed two), but otherwise, I haven't really seen the BIG arc stories for X2 that we saw with X1. Where are the Jean Resurrection stories? The Logan Goes After His Past stories? The Fallout from Stryker and the President mutant-hatred stories?
Maybe it's that X3 will so obviously be about these things that readers are simply ... waiting? Fanfic tends to fill in the blanks, and this isn't a blank so much as an 'incomplete story.' Or maybe there will be more fic once the DVD comes out and writers can watch the film more than a handful of times. It's hard to construct more complicated plots with only a few viewings.
Also, it may be that because X2 IS a second film, some of the 'old' movieverse authors (like me) are still caught up in long-term projects. I just finished a prequel novel of 190,000 words, about the origin of the X-Men, and how Scott met Jean; that took a lot of my focus. Now, I'm going on to poke at two other stories, a series and a novel. I DO have an X2 novella/novel in mind ... but it's down the pike from these more immediate obligations. I don't know how many writers that affects really, but it does affect me. I've got only 2 X2 short stories, but 4 X1 novels, 3 series, and a handful of shorts.
It is a curious puzzle, though. And yes, on Jean. As one of the few fanfic authors who tends to focus on Jean (and Scott), I've been well aware that she's not a popular character and I do think it's because she's a bit threatening. I see her differently. :-)
--Minisinoo
Posted by: Minisinoo at August 6, 2003 04:22 AMX-2 WAS A GOOD MOVIE BUT I DID NOT LIKE THE BOBBY ROGUE PAIRING IT WAS SO SO BUT LOGAN AND ROGUE HAVE CHEMISTRY TOGETHER MAYBE X-3 AT LEAST BRING GAMBIT IN TO SWEEP ROGUE AWAY FROM BOBBY GAMBIT EVEN THOUGH I DON T LIKE HIM THAT MUCH IF THEY ARE NOT GOING TO HOOK LOGAN AND ROGUE HOOK GAMBIT AND ROGUE ANNA PAQUIN AND HUGH JACKMAN HAD GREAT CHEMISTRY IN X-1 WELL IT LOOKS LIKE THE MIGHT HOOK LOGAN AND ROGUE IN X-MEN EVOLUTION SO HOPE X-3 LOGAN AND ROGUE CAUSE ROGUE HAS THAT LOVE IN HER EYES LOOK WHEN SHE LOOKS AT LOGAN THE WORRIENESS IN HER VOICE WHEN THE SOLDIERS CAME THE WAY SHE BEGGED LOGAN TO COME WITH THEM I THINK ROGUE LOVES BOBBY AND LOGAN AND SHE DOES NOT KNOW WHO TO CHOOSE IF BRYAN SINGER WAS SMART HE WOULD HOOK LOGAN AND ROGUE IN X-3
Posted by: RICH PITONIAK at August 21, 2003 09:49 AMLOGAN AND ROGUE BELONG TOGETHER THAT BOBBY ROGUE THING WAS A WASTE OF TIME SHE DOES NOT LOVE BOBBY LIKES HIM YES LOVES HIM HELL NO SHE LOVES LOGAN AND LOGAN LOVES HER YOU CAN SEE IT IN X-1 AND IN X-2 EVEN THOUGH THEY DID THE ROGUE BOBBY THING IT WONT LAST IT CANT LAST I MEAN HOW CAN IT WHEN ROGUE LOVES LOGAN AND ANNA PAQUIN SAID IT HERSELF SHE CANT SEE ROGUE WITH ANYBODY BUT LOGAN AND HUGH WANTED TO KISS ANNA IN THE MOVIE AND ANNA SAID SHE WILL ONLY DO THE MOVIES ASLONG AS HUGH DOES THEM AND HUGH JACKMAN WAS HIRED BECAUSE OF THE CHEMISTRY HE HAS WITH ANNA PAQUIN
Posted by: RP at January 6, 2004 02:15 AMWhere did RP get that info about Anna only being able to see Rogue with Logan? About her only doing the movies if Hugh is? Or is that made-up?
Posted by: TRAPTROGUE at September 15, 2004 06:56 PM