Malcolm Reynolds’ Hero Moment
Ever since receiving my early copy of Firefly: Still Flying (I have a photograph in it), I’ve been overbearingly strident that (p)reviewer after (p)reviewer has been getting one of the new Firefly stories wrong.
The degree to which I have not seen others reading the story in the same way leads me to need to explain myself. (It should be noted, however, that I’ve not been engaged in some exhaustive search for all discussion of the story.) This is the point at which, if you haven’t yet seen the book and read “Take the Sky”, the story penned by Jose Molina at the end, you close this window and don’t come back until you have.
There’s no way for me to get into this without venturing headlong into spoiler territory, and you really do owe yourself the pleasure of reading the stories (Molina’s in particular) unspoiled. Read no further, and click no links.
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What Are We Supposed To Conclude
I’ve really enjoyed doing the Q&A’s, but based on how many times I’ve been asked the same question … I’d like to end the Q&A’s now.
The ellipsis there removes some specifics from the final answer in what became, as of, and because of, that answer, the final SlayAlive Q&A with Scott Allie about Buffy: Season 8. I’ve removed the specifics because I think that the more general statement the above sentence becomes via the ellipsis nicely sums up my own general view of those Q&A threads.
Or, at least, it does so when combined with an earlier use of paraphrase by Allie himself, in which he reduces (aptly) a question he says has been “echoed, rephrased, reflected” repeatedly to this: “What are we supposed to conclude from this thing that you’ve only started to reveal to us?”
And there you have it in a nutshell, the fanatical thread that ran through every Q&A discussion thread. Whether merely ignorant or simply rude, the insistence on running up to a serial storyteller, waving him off before he opens his mouth, and declaring that you don’t care that what he wants to do is Tell Us A Story (storytelling, of course, being something of an event which occurs over time), you just want him to tell you what it means, and/or how it ends, and/or at least what happens next.
I wish I knew, or at least I think I do, whether all these fans are just ignorant of how storytelling works, or whether they really do simply not care how it works, and just want their God damned answers now. But the storyteller — and, make no mistake, the editor necessarily is part of the storytelling process, not the marketing process — is under no obligation to be serving anyone’s interests in the story except the writer. The editor is not the publicist (who, to be clear, also should not be considered to beunder any obligation to out the writer’s intentions, let alone outright his plot development, in advance of the writer doing so himself), he is the editor. He is a servant to the story being told, and occasionally its master should he have something constructive to add to the writer’s process.
But one thing the storyteller — be he writer or editor — is not subject to is the whim of fandom. He is not at their beck and call, and just because this storyteller or that one might be gracious enough to give over some of their time to engage with a fandom during a story’s telling doesn’t mean free reign to assault him with demands to subvert that telling by outing meaning, endings, or what happens next.
Nestled amongst the nooks and crannies of this anti-storytelling entitlement are all the related agonies of fans insisting that the storyteller must not only know, not only respect, the vagaries of each and every permutation (hyperbole to underscore the point) of what this or that faction of fandom might potentially wig out and/or be concerned about, but, worse yet (frequently implicit, and occasionally explicit, in that insistence) must absolutely make sure that the stories he tells never tramples upon them, or, apparently, else.
No storyteller should ever be seen as being so obligated. Not by fandom, and hopefully not by themselves.
It reminds me, in tone to be sure if not in the specific issues or demands at hand, of the sort of crazy-making nonsense that drove me out of covering local politics, and if Scott Allie hopes to maintain his sanity as a storyteller going forward, I humbly suggest he stay away from any such Q&A sessions in the future.
There is only one thing he and any other storyteller should be obligated to understand about fandom (and I mean this in the sense that they owe this obligation to themselves, not to anyone else), and that is this: fandom, for all of its delight and wonder (and having founded a fandom event that in four years has raised over $300,000 for charity, I’m in no way a stranger to its delights and wonders) is bursting at regular and particular seams with people who either do not understand storytelling and do not seek to, or who simply do not care.
Steer clear, and just set to the task of telling story. Those of us who get it, get it. Those of us who can be made to get it, will get it eventually. The rest, they are just lost to us — ultimately, I’d argue, in many ways lost to themselves — and will not stop until you’ve given them the opportunity to drive you completely mad.
Nominate Unofficial M.E. (Again)
Back in November, I tried to cajole people into nominating Not The Official Twitter of Mutant Enemy for “Best Brand Use of Twitter” in Mashable’s Open Web Awards.
Despite failing to convince enough people it was worth their while, I’ll try again now that the nomination period for this year’s Shorty Awards is underway. My argument is the same now as it was then.
It’s a long shot — a ridiculously long shot, in fact — but I thought it would be interesting to see how far we could push an unofficial account promoting a given brand that doesn’t have an official one.
The larger argument for the utility of the unofficial account in question is outlined in On Mutant Enemy And Social Media, also posted back in November. Most of the case for the account’s successful, if unoffocial, representation of the Mutant Enemy brand in social media is made by spending some time browsing the past several month’s worth of its updates.
Unlike the Mashable awards, as near as I can tell from the rules, you can only nominate once for a given account under the Brand category in the Shorty Awards. Or, rather, you appear to be able to nominate a brand multiple times, but I believe it simply replaces your previous nomination with your new reason (you have to supply a reason with your nomination).
So, please consider nominating @UnofficialME for the Brand category in this year’s Shorty Awards. It’s still a long shot, but it’d still be interesting. Just remember: You must include a reason for your nomination to count.
Update: In addition to the official Brand category, I invite you also to nominate @UnofficialME in the community category Fan Brand, created as a kind of fallback position. If there’s enough support for a given community-created category, the Shorty Awards might convert it to an official category.
Update: See the @UnofficialME profile on the Shorty Awards site for the instructions on which categories in which to nominate.
Nominate Unofficial M.E.
In the absence of an official presence (and since the end of a fan campaign I spearheaded called Watch DOLLHOUSE Week way back in May), I’ve been operating what could best be described as Not The Official Twitter of Mutant Enemy.
On a lark, I’ve been urging people to nominate @UnofficialME for Best Brand Use of Twitter in Mashable’s 2009 Open Web Awards. It’s a long shot — a ridiculously long shot, in fact — but I thought it would be interesting to see how far we could push an unofficial account promoting a given brand that doesn’t have an official one.
As of this post, there are just over one and a half hours left to submit nominations for this year’s awards, as the process closes at midnight Pacific tonight, Sunday. So, if you haven’t yet today, please nominate @UnofficialME for Best Brand Use of Twitter in Mashable’s 2009 Open Web Awards.
Evil Anniversary Of Evil
One year ago this Friday, I launched the Evil League of Evil website for the folks behind Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.
At their Comic-Con panel session in July 2008, Team Horrible announced that they would be conducting a contest. Would-be members of the E.L.E. would be invited to submit video applications, and the ten best would be selected for inclusion on the then-forthcoming DVD release.
Not long after Dr. Horrible first went up online, I had registered a number of domains I thought they themselves should have registered but didn’t. Amongst those was one for the E.L.E., and after the announcement at their Comic-Con panel, I offered it up to them for the contest.
For most of August, before any of that actually moved forward, a placeholder fansite was accessible (you can see a screenshot in this Tubefilter article) and included a hidden email link which generated an auto reply purporting to be from Bad Horse himself.
The Evil League of Evil soon will be accepting applications for membership. Please stand by.
– Bad Horse
P.S. Please forgive the absence of song. The Bad Horse Chorus currently is recovering from a Horrible hang-over.
It wasn’t until a September flurry of emails that the actual contest version of the site finally went up, and they began taking applications. Team Horrible, of course, provided the contest rules and the E.L.E. logo, while I put the admittedly-rudimentary (but perfectly serviceable for its purpose) site together. I also ginned up some of the site copy, including the footnote jokes.
Two weeks later, the contest came to a close, and my work was done. They began culling its massive collection of submitted applications. Two months after that, the print-on-demand DVD had its release, revealing the ten winners of the contest. Since then, a number of the applicants — winners and not alike — have continued their evil exploits.
In honor of all of the above, I present here — for the first time anywhere — the full list of links to all the applications submitted during the contest period. There might still be some duplicates between the Vimeo and YouTube lists, and I can’t guarantee all of them are still available.
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