The perfect joy of Fixing Things

One of my least favorite things is when a show or a movie does something just stupid with a character, especially if it's obvious that it's just for shock value or some really lame attempt at being unexpected that falls flat. There's too much good TV around to get away with being lazy and derivative (in the bad way) these days.

But while I hate that, I absolutely love the ability of fan communities to fix it. Because when the show itself drops the ball so badly that the fans have to step in and rewrite it, this door opens up in the story--or is exposed, or we line up just right to see it, or something--and suddenly there's space in the story for us.

The days of passive TV consumption are done. We're not at a point where we can just write the shows as we want them to be*. But we're at exactly the point where we can take the source material, and through fan art, fanfic, meta posts, articles, and discussions, we can correct the things that piss us off. And there's a community that wants to see and share these things! I mean, how cool is that?

Here's a few of the posts I've found on tumblr that try to make the strange Black Widow-Hulk storyline make more sense. It was sort of a "whatever" for me, which is rare since I'm such a hardcore shipper, but it really upset a lot of people, and their responses to it are so often creative and generative and better that it's impressive:

http://samiholloway.tumblr.com/post/136491327602/capeandcowl-aroskywalker-gingersnapwolves

http://samiholloway.tumblr.com/post/130064544622/people-who-could-have-calmed-down-the-hulk-who

http://samiholloway.tumblr.com/post/127321905357/amuseoffyre-now-this-i-could-have-tolerated

See how these things, these pretty simple tweaks make this thing so much better? Something as fantastically messed up as a whole season of a show (cough - sleepy hollow season two - cough)** takes a lot more work, but that's also a lot more space. A show that is perfect and ideal, no matter how good, no matter how addictive, is hard to find space for yourself in. But a thing that's still good, still loved, but broken in specific places? That's a huge opportunity, and I ADORE that there are people who see that and get mad, and then instead of sitting around complaining, get up and do something about it. Because broken stories are insulting to those of us who have invested in them***, but they're also a place to rework the text, something we don't get to do in any official capacity, but that we have this whole space online to look at, collaboratively, creatively, and replace with something that works and flows and makes more sense without having to destroy or invalidate the whole canon to do it.

And that's amazing.

What do you guys think about fan-fixes? What're your favorites? Share in the comments!

*and I'm not sure I really want that to be the norm, because majority rules rarely makes the best decisions.
**Or last season of Homeland, from what I gather, for instance.
***And there's a difference between a damaged storyline that makes out of character and questionable choices just for the sake of making them, with no set up or context, and stories that make choices that make us uncomfortable on the way to better stories.

Professional Fangirl Roundtable #1 - Earliest fandoms

Sami:

I think I'm gonna just straight up steal that one off Tumblr for the first question: What was your first fandom? The first thing you remember just geeking out over?

Kiddle: 

Hmmm - I'm older, and got busy with life so some of my geekiness was on hold for a bit because of life. LATELY, 2013 marked my reentry into TV show geekdom. Sleepy Hollow launched my Twitter activity! I had an account forever, but had only sporadically used it. Sleepy Hollow ignited a passion for both Tumblr and Twitter. I pored, in particular, over Tom Mison - the beginning of my "10 Toms" list (which has expanded beyond 10 Toms now. LOL). I really have to thank Sleepy Hollow, because, in addition to giving me a lot of pleasure, I credit it for launching me into being active with Black Sails, which lead me to Hank Otero (@Hanko9) and HE led me to my Dominion intense relationship. That's garnered me so many new acquaintances and friendships, plus encouraged me to branch out into forms of fan art. I believe it might have been Sami who made me reinvestigate Storify (33 or so Storifies later - THANKS SAMI....LOL).  Going way back in time, I think one of my odder obsessions was over Kolchak: The Night Stalker. HAHAHA. I loved that show. Sighhhhh.

Lothwen: 

Harry Potter! My friend made me read them. She said I could go on sailing vacation with her and her folks if I promised to read Harry Potter. We've been fangirling over it ever since :)

Danyi: 

First fandom was Harry Potter. When I was seven my aunt got me the first three books and got me hooked. 

Sami: 

Holy crap, when you were seven. I was buying my own books and coffee at a bookstore with money from my first job the first time I saw Harry Potter! But those books are amazing. I read all five of the first ones in a week when I worked at the library, and then went to release parties for the last two!

The very first thing I remember talking about and being obsessed with was Star Trek: the Original Series (then, the only series!). I grew up watching it with my dad and I loved it so hard. And Remington Steele. Like, that show is still something I could watch every night and not get sick of it, and I'm waiting for someone to realize it would make an awesome reboot before cops-and-con shows go out of fashion. I'm pretty sure the very first fanfic I ever wrote was sappy diary entries on one or both of these shows before I knew that that was a thing people let others see.

And, of course, being an 80s kid, ALL THE CARTOONS, but specifically Cities of Gold, Belle and Sebastian, Jace and the Wheeled Warriors, Thundercats, She-Ra and He-Man, and Ninja Turtles. 

The first thing I ever bought novelizations for was Press Gang. Has anyone seen that?

Lauren: 

I wasn't allowed to read Harry Potter as a kid, so I was a teenager, and all but the last book was out before I read them. I haven't seen Press Gang, but Star Trek resonates with me. I used to watch the Original Series with my dad, as well as the The Next Generation. I was about the happiest kid alive when Star Trek: Voyager came out. 

I loved Star Trek, and it definitely paved the way for another couple of obsessions: Stargate SG1 and Firefly.

Stargate is the first and only universe I ever wrote fan fiction in.

My real first obsession though was Lord of the Rings. I had just turned seven when my dad was given the trilogy and when I asked about the books, he said I'd like them, but they would be too hard for me to read. I set out to prove him wrong. It took me a year, but I read all three books, and had gotten through them twenty-one times before I turned twenty-one. Everything in my life centered around Middle Earth for a while. I was ecstatic when the movies came out. I can still see the influence of Tolkien's writing on my own.

Of course there were other things I loved as a kid, other things I really got into, but none of them have stuck with me the way these have. 

A few honorable mentions: Doctor Who (the fourth doctor is forever my favorite), X-Files, The Chronicle of Prydain (book series), and the universe of Ender's Game.

Kiddle: 

I'm substantially older than the rest of you. But I was given Lord of the Rings when I was 9 and I LOVED THEM. That was a great series. I think I might have read the Hobbit after the trilogy. But I can't remember...

Good on you for plowing through those at that age!

I was thirteen when I read The Hobbit, so I got them backwards like you did :)

Danyi: 

Lol it's ok I'm use to be the youngest most of the time. I read Harry Potter and then along came anime. Oh! And my aunt had me watching Doctor Who at 5 but I barely remember that so I don't count it lol. 

Sami: 

Oh, man, Doctor Who. I watched the Fourth Doctor forever, but I never really thought about it much until we lived in the UK--at the time of the Seventh--in the town Sylvester McCoy came from. I actually watched the last ep of the original run live, and totally missed the significance entirely. But the Eighth, in that movie that totally failed in the US? That's when I got Doctor Who, and when I found out that it had been relaunched after watching a Tenth Doctor ep on TV (the second half of a two-parter!), I went and found all of series 1 and 2 and watched them all in one day when I was sick, and then watched them all again when I showed them to my room mate a week later. Then we had Doctor Whos-days for a while, where we'd come home from work and watch a Classic Who serial each Tuesday. Four laid a foundation in my brain, but that tower of fandom wasn't built until my 20s, so I didn't count it.

You know what books I adore from when I was a kid? Wise Child and The Snow Spider and Narnia. Those're the ones I read over and over again. And when I was just out of High School, I read The Dark Is Rising and wished I'd found it when I was a kid!

PS: Kiddle and Danyi--age doesn't mean anything in fandom! We all love the same!

PPS: I have never seen Kolchak, but I remember when Chris Carter namedropped it when he was doing X-Files the first time, there was talk of reviving it. I think those original eps on Chiller now?

Kiddle: 

Four is my favorite doc. Hubby and I watched those on PBS very regularly! I still love Tom Baker. He's quite funny.

Nic: 

Hi ladies, 

Sorry I'm a bit behind. Really first participating in what we consider fandom now, would be Dominion. However, if we're just talking about being completely smitten with something, then I have a few early on - and don't laugh! 

(ok you can totally laugh). 

As a pre-teen I was obsessed with NKOTB. I had Jordan's T-shirt and the band's sheets. I wrote what we would call fanfiction now - at the time it was just stories that me and my BFF would write to each other. (complete with us being stranded on an island with the 5 guys! LOL). 

I was also obsessed with Madeline L'engle series (A Wrinkle in Time, Wind in the Door etc), LM Montgomery's books (Anne of Green Gables etc), Wheel of Time series, The Dark Is Rising series, and a few others. I was obsessed with fairy tales - but the original ones with dark endings. 

TV wise - early on was 21 Jump Street and Miami Vice. They had angsty brooding dudes and "darker" themes. I loved Stargate SG1, La Femme Nikita (film and tv series), Farscape, X-Files and the ultimate fangirling was for all things Buffy (and then later Angel). BSG was also another big one.

Movie wise - The Crow really impacted me (I was in high school - I still remember seeing it with these guy friends I had). It was dark and tortured and Brandon Lee was one of the few (if only) mixed race actors on the scene at the time that was a lead. I also love Speed for similar reasons (I mean, come on, Keanu Reeves!)  ;)

I became obsessed with the Matrix (specifically the first movie - saw it 8 times in the theater - in NYC where there were no matinee show prices! it got pricey).

Ok so that's probably more than you wanted to know. I know there's a pattern somewhere in there... LOL

Sami: 

The Crow! Oh man, that hit right in the middle of my Goth Phase when I was singlehandedly trying to stop the tide of messy Marylin Manson gothiness. 

What did you guys first fangirl over?

Letter from the editor - March 2016

Hello lovely geeks!

February, even though it was a day longer than usual, still felt incredibly short and fast, didn't it? We hardly did anything we'd intended to do--how about you? But March is officially the end of the first quarter since we made the promise to make Professional Fangirl a real site*, and it's time to make sure we're still on track. That puts me in mind of making sure everything is on track--and since this is a site called Professional Fangirl, it makes me think about plot lines and story arcs and whether our favorite stories are going how we think they should--and how much what we think matters to the people who make the show.

So that's the open question for the readers and the bloggers this month: How on-track are your shows? Which shows went off track spectacularly and which got it just right? What old examples do you use as a yardstick to measure whether a show is on track or not?

I'll post our answers (and the answers to last month's question that I never posted) later, and in the meantime, feel free to talk about that in the comments or in the community (linked in the sidebar)!

Happening this month:

• Blindspot and Gotham are back, finally!
• Colony will be wrapping up, and we'll see whether there's good enough payoff for all the trauma they've been living through!
• Agent Carter wraps up it's second season tonight, and Agents of Shield comes back on the 8th
• PBS airs a documentary about A Year In Space
• Damien, about the kid from the devil-movie grown up, launches on the 7'th
• Daredevil comes back on the 18th and brings new and beloved people with him!
• Stitchers comes back on the 22nd! Yay!
• And on the 31st, Ovation is airing a movie called The Brilliant Bronte Sisters that will either be awesome or totally boring
• Elementary movies to Sunday nights part way through the month, which could be okay, or could be a bad sign, depending--I always get nervous when they start moving shows around
• Rush Hour launches, while we're talking about odd crime shows

And this month's movies:

• 11th: 10 Cloverfield Lane
• 18th: Allegiant, Little Prince, Pee-Wee's Big Holiday, Midnight Special, A Space Program (and The Bronze, notable because of Seb Stan, if not scifi)
• 25th: Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, Identicals (poor them, going up against BvS!)

And we've got SO MUCH MORE lined up as the months unfold! What're you guys looking forward to this year? Is this going to be the geekiest year on record?



NOTES:
*I always think "a real site" in Pinocchio's voice. Also, I'm totally drinking tea out of a moscow mule mug in that pic, and burning my lips like a doof.