I think I'm all smart-ed out, because I want to say something and can't think of what I want to say, beyond being impressed with how organized your response is, and how disorganized my mind is right now. *g*
One thing I did want to say was about objectivity--or that notion of critiquing from the inside. In my experience, what happens when someone does this is that often, other fans "inside" the fandom react with a quick and dirty, "Well, if you're so unhappy with it, stop watching! Nobody's forcing you." Likewise with fic crit (maybe moreso), in that we're very oriented toward, "If you can't say anything nice..." mode.
Not sure what to do about that, but I'm thinking more about it because I just posted about Numb3rs and realized how much of this is relevant to why I ended up leaving the fandom's primary community. The vast majority of them didn't want me there because my way of looking at the show (which I loved, else why would I bother to play in that universe for twenty-odd stories?) was too different from the way they looked at it, and the fandom managed to run out or silence most all who diverged from the uncritical love viewpoint.
no subject
One thing I did want to say was about objectivity--or that notion of critiquing from the inside. In my experience, what happens when someone does this is that often, other fans "inside" the fandom react with a quick and dirty, "Well, if you're so unhappy with it, stop watching! Nobody's forcing you." Likewise with fic crit (maybe moreso), in that we're very oriented toward, "If you can't say anything nice..." mode.
Not sure what to do about that, but I'm thinking more about it because I just posted about Numb3rs and realized how much of this is relevant to why I ended up leaving the fandom's primary community. The vast majority of them didn't want me there because my way of looking at the show (which I loved, else why would I bother to play in that universe for twenty-odd stories?) was too different from the way they looked at it, and the fandom managed to run out or silence most all who diverged from the uncritical love viewpoint.