Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

I’ve figured out blog linking. (Yes, I clicked on the little [link] on Liz’s page and it turned out to be a little link, like my byline times are.) So, the bitter maggot saga goes like this:

Actually, I’m still trying to figure out this blog linking thing, since something strange is happening here at blogspot, that wouldn’t be happening if I had a site I could ftp to. Speaking of sites, I should go check if Crosswinds has risen from the dead yet.

I’m still midnight blogging. Pay no attention to blogger - I’m on my free hour of daylight-unsavings time. I was finally admitted to the playground at EnterpriseAndBeyond. I’m still afraid of getting involved in ENT, but I wanted to see the inspiration behind the bitter maggot blog. It took a bit of hunting in the archives–for some reason no one used the subject line bitter maggot–but I think I found the core of the issue.

No, I’m not going to rehash it. There are so many problems with fandom that the particulars don’t really matter anymore. Just as it doesn’t matter exactly why, when I take out DQ Babes in the Mirror-Mirror Universe and think of all the ways I could improve the story, I don’t fix it. Or rather, I don’t take it out in the first place.

If fanfic is a hobby, it should be more fun and less power-trips and clique-blowouts. If it’s a calling, then it should be more respectable, instead of a matter for jokes like that Back To The Future fanfic link someone posted to ASC. If it’s work, then I ought to own what I write, instead of living in Paramount’s legal penumbra. If fanfic writers are better than pay-per-fic hacks, why do people go on reading pay-per-fic instead?

I repeat, this is not a bitter maggot post. I’m just thinking aloud, trying to understand why I hardly write fanfic anymore, and trying to have something to say to Michael when I tell him I can’t write for his project. The reason, I think, is that it is his. I cannot share B’Elanna the Muse, not with him, not with jetcers, not with virtual seasons–not even with the Great Bird of the Galaxy, sometimes.

B’Elanna has always gotten me into trouble, for not writing kissyface, for writing canon instead of J/C, for writing Trek instead of the X-Files. I have to conclude that the people who complain about B’Elanna don’t have the muse. Anyone who asks why you can’t just fix it or toss something out of character into your story because it fits their arc knows not the muse. It’s one thing to be a hack if it means putting food on the table, but to be a hack for no reason, just to satisfy a clique of virtual people, is a betrayal of the muse.

It’s never wise to betray a god, not even an illusory one.

I was up on the auction block again today (technically, yesterday)…or in modern terms, I had another job interview. I don’t interview well. When my boss tells me that, it just reminds me of second grade report cards saying “does not play well with others”. Tell me something new. Only time will tell whether I go on being a starving artist or get to be a well-fed artist until this company, like my last one (of the boss with the obvious comments), sinks in the quicksand that passes for the Boston economy.

This real-life example of how you never really escape grade school brings us back to the bitter maggot theme. Liz was kind enough to point me in the direction of ENT fandom, though I did have to beg for two days. I can’t help thinking that no one invited me to the ENT party because I said the wrong thing about someone’s eighties batwing hairstyle or something.

If ASC is anything to judge by, ENT fic is purely reactionary so far. Except for an excellent little T/Tu (funny how that still says Torres/Tuvok to me) by Seema and the ubiquitous Captain’s Dog’s Log, it all seems like an exercise in rehashing the episodes. Was it already a week ago today that I said, “I hate it when people transcribe the show and call it fanfic, without even the humorous stage directions provided by Jim”? And I was thinking of the millions of times I’ve read the Angry Warrior Speech in fan fiction, not a future of rehashes of the Alien Spore Paranoia episode.

Alien spores ought to be more fun.

About blogging back, the latest fad: I blogged back to Liz’s bitter maggot blog entry (today), but you have to hit that little [comment] button to see what I said. I really, really hate hitting little buttons. [Insert tirade on click-taxes here, if you’ve heard it.] Anyway, here’s what I said; there’s a general question in there.

I completely agree with the maggot blog entry, even though I have no clue about the specifics Liz was talking about. I guess no one ever told her that the VOY definition of constructive criticism is “what I want to hear, the way I want to hear it”. Some things you learn the hard way.

I thought the same thing when J/C fandom went from tired and old to vicious and angry - it’s time to write that novel. Fame is the best revenge, right? Don’t you want so-and-so to hang her head in shame and say, “I drove her out of fandom, back before she was famous and beloved by all”? The problem is, so-and-so would somehow manage to take the credit for your Hugos. So-and-so’s are that way.

I remember when all this was fun, and here I am, old and bitter, living on the J/P and C/7 fringes of VOY, petrified of getting involved in ENT or Delta Fleet, missing Christine and all the other disappeared VOY people…

There comes a time when you have to consider that maybe fandom is just this way. Maybe Trek fans have always been stark raving mad. Maybe it goes back to sci-fi fandom, that huge clique that considers all outsiders “mundanes” and scolds newcomers for calling it sci-fi instead of sf. Maybe it’s time to go read some Ayn Rand and develop a healthy detestation for the other 98% of humanity.

Maybe it’s time to get back to that novel.

Part of my research for the Seven Saga is a timeline of Seven’s life, especially the major nits. It’s housed at Wikifection, the C/7 wiki, so if you’re a nitpicker, you can add nits yourself.

I can’t believe I read the whole thing.

I’m a Voyager girl, so it takes a lot for me to read TNG. Picard/Crusher makes me retch, with one exception. In fact, any TNG crew pairings feel like your parents getting together, and who wants to read fanfiction about that? So I’m still not sure how I got drawn into the Captain and Counselor series, but here I am, many megabytes later, practically liking Deanna Troi.

The series begins with “Elephants in the Lift”, which introduces the ultimate in off-the-wall pairings - not even the Evil Twins could have come up with P/T, but Lori pulls it off convincingly. Near the end of the infinite series, in “Actions Speak Louder”, all the characters, old and new, are drawn into mysterious doings in the Briar Patch. If you like DS9, action-adventure, or the dark doings of Starfleet renegades, “Actions Speak Louder” and “Leopards on a Limb” are for you.

Maybe Lori’s answer to post-series TNG will inspire me to write some AQ VOY.