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

[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.