fandom quiz

[jmtorres]

echan and I have spent seriously, like, three hours, discussing fannish categorizations of material as it strays further and further from canon. We are interested in your opinions on the following:

In reference to vidding:
What constitutes canon (or nonviolation of canon)?
What constitutes an AU?
What constitutes constructed reality?

Where are the lines between these categories? What separates them? What rationales and characteristics can you use to differentiate between them?

Where does crossover fall in this scale?
Does the use of secondary sources make a vid fall into one category or another?

Second verse: would you care to tackle the same questions (as relevant) wrt fanfiction?

If you're very good, I may post my own thoughts on this matter when I am less drunk.

Comments

[laurashapiro]

I've been wondering about AU vs. constructed reality for years now. Fic just seems to have AUs, with "constructed reality" being a term only used for vids. But is there a difference? Is "constructed reality" just an AU in vid form?

I have no idea.

I feel like there's a clear line between CR and canon, but things like slash or unconventional het pairings (Claire-Sylar ::shudder::) make it seem fuzzy again. Those who privilege authorial intent would argue that all shippy vids in which the characters are not canonically in a romantic/sexual relationship are by definition CR/AU, but I don't see it that way, exactly.

It's confusing!

My $.02

[tamtrible]

Mostly wrt fanfic, I don't watch many vids, really....

For me, the line for canon is... no provable violation of established source material, as of the time of initial writing (that is, as of the last source material the author watched/read before writing), or at least as of when the story is set. I don't really count things that were made AU by subsequent changes in source material

Things like slash relationships only fall under AU if it is categorically established that the character Has Not Done That. Otherwise, unless the camera (or "camera") has been following the character 24/7, it's always possible that they've been getting sexed up (or whatever) on the sly.

Also not really considered are silly/trivial violations of Prior Canon, that are obviously either errors or minor jokes. That is, at worst, bad writing, but not really AU.

Constructed reality is not really a term I've run across before, I think it may be a vids-only thing. AU is... anything that substantially violates canon. Ranging from "Canon relationship? What canon relationship?" to "Our Heroes in the Wild West".

Crossovers can be AU or non-AU, or AU for only one source. I'm inclined to call them AU (for at least one source) if the "rules" of at least one source need to be violated to get the two to cross. For example, a Bab 5 x-over with any of the Star Treks would kind of have to be AU. But Doctor Who could cross over with a wide variety of things without actually going AU, because, well, he does things like that. And pretty much any set-in-reality-today source could cross without going AU. But (imo) crossovers don't really need to be *labeled* AU in cases of clashing source material, since it's kind of obvious.

As to vids with non-source material, I'd only really count them as AU if, again, they somehow violate established canon. Though I might be a bit stricter about it than I would be with fanfics, in terms of provably established canon, since the medium is a bit more... exact, in any case. In a fic, bad characterization or the like is simply a matter of sloppy writing, rather than "bad" source.

[china_shop]

I'm still new to vidding and probably wrong about everything (*g*), but this made me wonder whether a vid is AU or CR (and I guess I tend to think of vids as more CR than AU simply because with vids, the reality is so very constructed, whereas with fic, we were making up all of the words from scratch anyway /digression) if there is substantial re-purposing of footage. By which I mean, if you approach the footage out of context, ignoring what came before or after each shot, and try to create a new story. Use X's reaction to an apple and re-contextualise it as a reaction to the TARDIS, or fudge it so in context it looks like it's person A in that long-shot when it's actually person B. Plus manips, etc.

I know all vidding has an element of that, but in non-AU/CR vids, don't we generally assume the viewer will bring the context to the vid, whereas with AU/CR, we're hoping they'll be able to put it aside?

Actually, now I've confused myself. Ot1h, there's trelkez's OT3 White Collar festivid, Let's Misbehave (I'm late for work, so no link, sorry), which I don't think of as CR, really, but which tells a new story by re-purposing clips with abandon. Maybe it is CR and I'm just not classifying it as such because I want to believe? And otoh, I read the BtVS bootcamp thread from way back when, and the posters there were very aware of the context of each clip, and the connotations and resonance that flowed from the surrounding scene/episode, and I've totally lost my train of thought, sorry... *fail*

*scampers off to work*

[katta]

I haven't heard the term constructed reality before. Would that be the same thing as an elseworld? Because in fic, I think there's a very real difference between single-change AU fic such as "nothing after season 4 happened" or, more drastically, "Buffy Summers never came to Sunnydale" and elseworld AU stories of the "everyone is a pirate" kind. And crossovers could be either of those. I guess that translates to vids as well?

[ratcreature]

http://fanlore.org/wiki/Constructed_Reality
has a lot of examples.

[katta]

Okay, thanks!

I guess it's harder to draw a clear line in vids than in fics, because so much is up to the viewer. If the vid doesn't specifically say that it's a constructed reality, some viewers consider it to be so and some may not.

[ratcreature]

The same can be true for AU fic though. Take for example the "X has a secret in their past/is secretly a..." type of fic. You can certainly write one that is very close to canon, like a secret that explains some behavior and fits both technically as well as in tone with the canon, or you can write something that might be possible with the canon but adds a type of angst unlikely to be seen in canon (secretly a hooker, horribly abused as a kid etc), or you can add something that technically may not contradict canon in any way, but is highly unlikely and not really in line with the universe (like someone is secretly a shapeshifting dragon and on the run from their people, therefore never shifting into dragon form also dragons hide from the public so the other characters don't know about them... or some scenario like that). Most people would label the last AU but not the first, but inbetween there is sliding scale where you could label it AU or you could say it's canon fic.

[katta]

Most people would label the last AU but not the first, but inbetween there is sliding scale where you could label it AU or you could say it's canon fic.

I guess I have a stricter definition of AU than most, then, because I wouldn't call any of those things AU, as long as they don't directly contradict canon. Otherwise, wouldn't all fic be AU?

But yes, you have a point - fic AUs can be hard to define too. I guess the difference to me is that with fics, the author states something upfront and the reader can go "Well, that's not canon." With vids, unless source is taken elsewhere, everything is from canon, and the context makes it CR or not - but vids always consist of clips in new contexts, so it really depends on the viewer seeing the same narrative as the vidder. (Or indeed any narrative at all; not all viewers do.) So it's harder both to create an AU and to make it appear as such.

[ratcreature]

I think most people count the implicit assumptions a universe makes as canon too, e.g. that Criminal Minds and CSI do not have hidden magic because they are procedural cop shows, even though in plenty of urban fantasies magic is not known by everyone either. The only instances where I have seen that kind of thing not labelled AU was in crossovers, because it is canon integration that leads to the premise shifting.

So you wouldn't call a story that works with everything we saw on screen but twists CSI into some kind of urban fantasy and has for example Nick Stokes secretly as a shapeshifting dragon who hid that fact from his colleagues AU?

I can't really say anything about vids because I watch very few, and usually I don't understand them, unless they are either funny or have a very clear story.

[katta]

I think most people count the implicit assumptions a universe makes as canon too, e.g. that Criminal Minds and CSI do not have hidden magic because they are procedural cop shows

But if so, any fic that wasn't in the same genre as the canon would be an AU. A Leverage ghost story, or Golden Girls angst story, or Gilmore Girls mystery. The genre already sets the tone, why unnecessarily use (and thereby weaken) the term AU as well?

So you wouldn't call a story that works with everything we saw on screen but twists CSI into some kind of urban fantasy and has for example Nick Stokes secretly as a shapeshifting dragon who hid that fact from his colleagues AU?

I would probably call it crackfic. Unless it was meant to be taken seriously, in which case I suppose it'd fall under "genre: supernatural" or something like that. Or just labelling it "urban fantasy". Things like wingfic are usually labelled with their particular trope, after all.

I'm not even entirely happy about elseworlds being mixed up with AUs, but since I can usually figure out what kind of story it is from the summary, I don't bitch too much about that.

I can't really say anything about vids because I watch very few, and usually I don't understand them, unless they are either funny or have a very clear story.

...I thought vids - in comparison to fics, admittedly, but still - were the topic discussion at hand?

[ratcreature]

yeah, sorry, the conversation drifted. It's just that I watched maybe three constructed reality vids that I remember (one was Closer, and the other that SPN vid that has them as bankrobbers, and that SGA Rodney/Ronon vid that merges Ronon into scenes he wasn't in in canon), and these were pretty much what I would call AU in fic, so I've always more or less thought that constructed reality was just a word vidders use to call their AUs, like some fandoms call AUs something different.

[katta]

One thought that occurred to me is that comedy vids are kind of hard to categorize in that respect. For instance, is a LotR vid set to the Muppet Show theme song (authentic example, btw) a constructed reality in which the LotR gang are putting up a show, or is it "just" a silly commentary on their behaviour in canon? It could be seen as either...

[niqaeli]

I pretty much view constructed reality as a vidding term and something that involves going abroad from your main source to construct. So, my Barrayar vid concept: well, given I don't have *any* A/V source for the fandom, it's pretty much a pure constructed reality. Then also things like vids for fic that require you to go afield of the original source qualify for me.

My view of canon vs. AU is really stretchy because I spent a long time in comics fandom and ahahahaha. Yeah. Also, I'm a huge genre fan so. Yeah. Canon AUs happen a lot. But I do make a distinction between an AU and an alternate timeline. Alternate universe, to me, is dragons, or high school, or 18th and 19th century military. Alternate timelines, are fairly obvious: the what-ifs and could-have-beens and if this-had-been different. I actually regard always-female or always-male AUs and their related ilk to actually strictly be alternate timelines. It's one tweak and then everything falls out from how their lives would be different.