Allow Me To Cannibalize A Comment Into A Post. Because That's How I Roll.

[redbrunja]

There was a conversation (on a locked post, so) about fanfic authors having Felicity Smoak (of Arrow) be a fan of various Big Fandoms (Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, etc) and while I think it works better with Felicity* than a lot of other characters, I think it's a ballsier move than most fanficcers realize.

The thing is, name-dropping fandoms (especially a fandom that author loves or that is super-popular currently) is one of the easiest ways to throw a reader out of the story, because you have to deal with the reader's opinion about what that character would like** AND their feelings about the property in question.

I mean, when it works***, it really works, but I think that most writers don't realize what they're risking on what is often not a very important detail.

*I bet Felicity is watching Game of Thrones. But I also suspect she liked the books better.

**Sidebar, playing 'what other media would fictional character X love' is super-fun, imho.

***that time Tony Stark thought about his mother singing Simon & Garfunkle's "America" as a lullaby  and how he thought it was referencing Captain America ALL THE FEELINGS MY GOD.

[+] Finally, based on the conversation that inspired this post, now I’m imagining that Felicity is a total arthouse film and History Channel geek, instead of the more common sci-fi/fantasy nerd.

[+] There is a whole other post regarding writing canonically well-read characters like Rory Gilmore, Blair Waldorf, and Dan Humphrey.

Comments

[mollivanders.livejournal.com]

I don't really think that Felicity would watch a lot of tv shows. I feel like she would watch a couple of genre shows, but I see her more as a reader. She has all that downtime in the Lair, and when she gets home I think she'd just want to unwind from Heroics, so I just picture her curled up with a book and a cup of tea. She'd probably watch GoT but prefer the books (as you said) and probably post a lot on fan forums.

Did you ever read The Magicians? The author references a bunch of Known Literature in that book and it was almost jarring, because then the two worlds couldn't coexist in any practical sense.

[streussal.livejournal.com]

I have this pet peeve about really well read characters in fic always being like ~everyone knows Machiavelli's The Prince is a satire~, when no that is not a settled issue in academia okay.

[phemyscira.livejournal.com]

Oooh, are we sharing horror stories?

I once saw fanart where Katara genuinely wanted to go watch Twilight at the movies.

I don't think I need to tell you why that's horrifying.

[thatfangirl]

Yes! I get thrown out of Avengers stories where Tony is fannish. Sure, he (and Bruce) watched/read sci-fi as a kid, but Tony does not consider, e.g., Doctor Who, essential to Steve's twenty-first-century acculturation. Imo, by the time Tony hit puberty, he was too busy inventing/partying to be fannish the way we are fannish, y'know?