Yuletide Signup Considerations

[beatrice_otter]

I had to keep reminding myself, when signing up just now, that an important question is not just "can I write this character?" but "can I write this character the way the fandom as a whole views them, and as they are most likely to be requested?"

Because that's not always the case.  Prime example: Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen.  Fandom tends to have a lot more sympathy for the Crawfords and think that Fanny and Edmund are boring and overly-priggish and everyone would have been better off/happier/more interesting if they'd married the Crawford siblings instead of each other.

I disagree on all counts.  I think they're very interesting as written, and may be a bit naive but have a good deal better understanding of the social mores of their day and why they mattered than most readers today, and that neither of them could have been happily married to their respective Crawford, long-term.

Would I happily write a Yuletide story with my interpretation?  Would I love to participate in a ficathon with others who share my views?  Yeah.  But I would be very hard-pressed to write a happy Edmund/Mary or Fanny/Henry fic.  Chances of that being what my recipient wanted: high.

So I don't sign up for Mansfield Park.

Comments

[thothmes]

If it's any comfort to you, I see Mansfield Park the way you do. Fanny and Edmund will have the same comfort level with much of what life offers, and the same things will dismay them. That kind of thing is important in a marriage, especially over the long term. Decades of feeling off-balance and out of one's comfort zone do not make for comfort and contentment in the home!

[beatrice_otter]

Yes. It's not that Mary is a bad person, but she and Edmund are not compatible in the way they see the world, and while she doesn't see the harm that can sometimes result from the kind of lifestyle and attitudes she and her friends have toward relationships, Edmund doesn't see that sometimes her view is more realistic and clear-eyed than his.

Henry ... is the sort of man who will never understand the power he wields (as a landowner and as a charming person and a man in a deeply sexist society) and the responsibility he has to wield that power responsibly. He leaves destruction in his wake not out of malice but because he treats people as toys for his own amusement and he is never going to be truly brought to task for it because of his situation in life. A certain kind of woman: independent, sure of herself, with connections of her own and rank to balance his, might be able to live very happily with him as a husband, but that is not Fanny and never will be.

[melannen]

This is why I usually limit my yuletide requests to canons that basically have no online fandom presence at all, because then nobody has any expectations going in (usually....) Or at the very least there's zero chance of hitting on entrenched fanon opinions you disagree with.

[beatrice_otter]

Well, with most fandoms I have a wide range of headcanons that I can accept, so even if my recip and I disagree on one point, I can find some other to focus on that we agree on. That's not possible with something like Mansfield Park, where the fandom is so completely focused on ONE fanon.

[laurajv]

I do think it would be an interesting historical study to look at the changes in fanons over long periods, in fandoms that have had substantial longevity. Like, oh, Sherlock Holmes fandom and Jane Austen fandom.

[lastscorpion]

ITA re: Mansfield Park

And about exchanges - one of the big reasons I mostly don't write for them.

[beatrice_otter]

Usually, I have a broad enough range of opinions--and the fandoms themselves have a broad enough range of fanons--that it's not a hinderance to me. But with small fandoms like you get in Yuletide, you're a lot more likely to have a narrower guiding fanon, simply because there's less fic and fewer people playing in that sandbox. So you have to be more careful.