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I'M LOOKING AT YOU, people who've never read anything that have caused them to experience emotions before, and thus think My Little Dashie is gods gift to literature.
Tuesday, 17-Jan-12 07:19:57 UTC from web-
@ceruleanspark May I ask what brought about this statement? Along with this, what do you believe are the differences between regular literature and fanfiction? The first is simply out of curiosity while the second question is necessary to know where to begin replying.
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@fallinwinter Fanfiction is like...the literary equivelant of a ready meal. You get your characters and settings prepackaged. It's quick and easy, but it's not as fulfilling as a proper meal would be.
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@fallinwinter as for what bought it on? I'm sick of hearing teenagers rave about My Little Dashie. The fact that it is the first time you've read something that made you cry says far more about you as a person than it does the story itself.
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@ceruleanspark So you're saying it's too easy for writers or that it's too easy for readers? I guess the next question to further understand would be what do you expect to get out of reading?
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@ceruleanspark I don't know if 18 years old counts as a teenager, but I'm two pages in out of the twenty seven and I dislike the excessive amount of grief already.
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@fallinwinter I'm saying that it's...mostly without substance. Easy to digest. It is not going to provide meaningful intellectual challenge.
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@ceruleanspark But what's easy to digest? The story? The characters? The setting?
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@fallinwinter Well, you don't have to digest the characters or the setting do you? You already know both of them intimately. There's no pushing of boundaries or expansion of horizons here. They're the same 6 ponies in the same comfortable safe world as always.
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@ceruleanspark So you're saying if you were to make OC characters and put them in a setting that was different than a typical Equestria or anyplace that wasn't shown in the show it would be?
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@fallinwinter I believe this is one of the primary reasons Fallout Equestria has garnered the praise that it has. It DOES force the reader to expand their horizons by removing the familliar Equestria and removing the mane 6 from the equation.
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@ceruleanspark So you agree that Fallout Equestria does provide intellectual challenge?
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@fallinwinter It provides some, yes. I think given a couple of months and access to a professional editor, KKat could probably "de-ponyise" it sufficiently to get it published.
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@ceruleanspark Then would you think that a story which uses the characters of the show, but takes their personalities and fleshes them out farther than the show does make for an intellectual reading? While it uses a basis, the mane 6, if they expand further than that and add even more depth, especially when it's of the creator's mind meaning it's not already known to the reader beforehand.
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@fallinwinter Would you rather read Persona 4 Fanfiction or play Persona 5?
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@ceruleanspark Admittedly, I would play Persona 5. This brings up an interesting point however. What happens if Persona 5 continues with the characters from Persona 4? They're the same characters in a somewhat similar premise. Is this intellectually challenging?
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@fallinwinter Good question. I guess I'd have to see how different they actually are, and what the character and setting development are like to judge, but on the whole, it would, as far as I am concerned, be less stimulating than a clean-slate.
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@ceruleanspark Hmm. Taking this a tad step back, so the game's premise ("personas", realizing your true self, shadows appearing in some shape or form) isn't a hindrance? For that matter, from what I'm sensing, as long as the characters are different, the setting and premise can stay the same?
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@fallinwinter Actually, I was thinking ABOUT Persona as a concept as a way of elaborating how I feel. Reading things that challenge me is a way of becoming closer to understanding my true self. Sitting in a safe bubble of familliar places and people isn't going to get me closer to that ideal. That's why I feel like fanfiction is "worth less" than "From-Scratch" literature.
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@ceruleanspark Hm, if that's the case doesn't that mean other than things that are largely different in culture and the way they work (japan being one example I suppose) doesn't that mean any stories written about people in a setting on earth is kind of like this? Granted they have characters that are of course original, but the settings themselves aren't what I would call different in the sense that the ideals are at least somewhat similar.
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@fallinwinter Admittedly they're commonly regarded as "low" genres, but my favourites (Fantasy and Sci-Fi) frequently aren't set on Earth. This is just arguing semantics at this stage though. I feel like perhaps the difference between us is that you're getting this...self expansive stimulus from elsewhere?
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@ceruleanspark I was actually just about to write about that, but yes. Stories, whether they're from movies, cartoons, anime, fanfiction, books, or whatever are what I look for the most, enjoy, and what I take my experiences and in some ways challenge myself from. Instead of looking at things subjectively as a "character" or "setting", I look for how much I can relate to the character, how much I can like them or hate them or what have you. I look at their situations, what they go through, and learn from those stories. While they're not always completely realistic, it still means there tends to be at least some sense of logic or truth hidden inside and become a better person from it. In other words, its like they tell you to do in the Persona games, You're supposed to interact with others, learn about them and form a bond with them. While they're not real, feeling for a character in a story and what they go through is still a stimulating experience regardless of how it was conveyed
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@fallinwinter Which leads me to the inorexible conclusion that a terribly large number of people aren't performing any of these things. Which explains a lot, about a lot of things, actually.
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@ceruleanspark Pretty much. It doesn't help that some people have trouble reading at all which explains why they can't even get to that next step of digesting what they've read since they must try so hard to read at all. It's amazing how long it took us to read books and papers all throughout high school when we had the whole class participate.
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@fallinwinter There are supposedly intelligent people on this very site that would refer to your post as a "wall of text" and demand you summarise it for them. I think that puts the problem in a nutshell. Something I wanted to write about (I might put it on my blog) is that I feel that people tend to shy away from experiences that challenge them now. Our "on demand" culture has allowed everyone to manufacture, and essentially live inside bubbles of false-consensus whereby they will never be forced to deal with views that do not align with their own.
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@ceruleanspark I agree that more often than not challenging themselves in a good way is something that people tend to lack now. I wonder if I'm part of these people though if I use the easy difficulty or other workarounds so that I can watch the story if I have difficulty with the game?
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@fallinwinter You're challenging yourself intellectually with the story. Most game difficulty levels tend to be what I categorise as "Stupid bullcherries" that gets in the way of the interesting part (The story). The kind of person I'm talking about wouldn't even be discussing this with me right now. They've have taken a copout and left. His views are different and they're making me uncomfortable! Better go back to Facebook/twitter/reddit where everyone agrees with me!
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@ceruleanspark I assumed so, but it is nice to hear another person confirm this. Different perspectives and all.
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