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Sunny Spring Saturday Afternoon with Songs of Elfquest
Sunday, March 23rd, 2014 03:52 pmThe beloved fandoms that we chat about here are, for me, almost always those in which I need something more than canon. For whatever reason, those canons alone don't fulfill, and I turn to you, my fellow fans, for all the discussions and stories, fixing the errors and filling in the blanks, putting right what once went wrong and keeping the engine purring. It's a joy. But I do love some other stories, stories that I rarely if ever mention here, as profoundly as — and perhaps even more than — those fandoms I do mention.
Take the Pinis' ElfQuest, for example. (If you don't know it, try it! If you hate it, hush.) Now, deeply as I love it, I don't need to talk about it or read or write fanfic for it. It is. It is itself. It's enough. Canon fulfills. Granted, I say that having waited six months between black-and-white issues and bought the Stablaze color editions new in Waldenbooks. I have a poster signed by Wendy. Somewhere, I have a folder of my incompetent imitations of her work. I've had a long, long, long time for those roots to grow through my soul.
Anyway, I've been working a lot of sixty-hour weeks, lately. I rarely get on my own computer at home, or get to rather a lot of other things. I've been feeling pretty far down. But yesterday, Saturday, after about five hours in the office, I got in my car, looked at the gorgeously sunny day, and decided to go for a walk to decompress. "Okay, Google," I said to my phone. "Give me directions to the nearest park on the Bay Trail."
The place I arrived is an unremarkable cul-de-sac of drought-dry wetland between an abandoned factory and wetter wetlands, circled by bike trails, and as I began strolling in the spring sun, I plugged in my earbuds and pulled up the A Wolfrider's Reflections album, featuring mostly work by Julia Ecklar, but also some lyrics by Mercedes Lackey. (I won't go into how these most excellent filks went pro.) Point being, I hadn't listened to the album straight through in a few years, and while walking, overtired out there in the sun, it made me laugh, and cry, and ache, feeling the characters and knowing the moments. It's not just seeing the panels referenced in my mind's eye, or even seeing the events through the characters' eyes once again, because it wasn't just remembering loving ElfQuest.
The songs reminded me why I love fandom of itself, and all it does and can do at its best. Why do we do these things we do?
Funny, that a fandom where I generally feel no need for fandom, and filks that technically ceased to be fanworks (becoming authorized shared-universe works) ages ago, would so-suddenly supply that particular support.
Take the Pinis' ElfQuest, for example. (If you don't know it, try it! If you hate it, hush.) Now, deeply as I love it, I don't need to talk about it or read or write fanfic for it. It is. It is itself. It's enough. Canon fulfills. Granted, I say that having waited six months between black-and-white issues and bought the Stablaze color editions new in Waldenbooks. I have a poster signed by Wendy. Somewhere, I have a folder of my incompetent imitations of her work. I've had a long, long, long time for those roots to grow through my soul.
Anyway, I've been working a lot of sixty-hour weeks, lately. I rarely get on my own computer at home, or get to rather a lot of other things. I've been feeling pretty far down. But yesterday, Saturday, after about five hours in the office, I got in my car, looked at the gorgeously sunny day, and decided to go for a walk to decompress. "Okay, Google," I said to my phone. "Give me directions to the nearest park on the Bay Trail."
The place I arrived is an unremarkable cul-de-sac of drought-dry wetland between an abandoned factory and wetter wetlands, circled by bike trails, and as I began strolling in the spring sun, I plugged in my earbuds and pulled up the A Wolfrider's Reflections album, featuring mostly work by Julia Ecklar, but also some lyrics by Mercedes Lackey. (I won't go into how these most excellent filks went pro.) Point being, I hadn't listened to the album straight through in a few years, and while walking, overtired out there in the sun, it made me laugh, and cry, and ache, feeling the characters and knowing the moments. It's not just seeing the panels referenced in my mind's eye, or even seeing the events through the characters' eyes once again, because it wasn't just remembering loving ElfQuest.
The songs reminded me why I love fandom of itself, and all it does and can do at its best. Why do we do these things we do?
Funny, that a fandom where I generally feel no need for fandom, and filks that technically ceased to be fanworks (becoming authorized shared-universe works) ages ago, would so-suddenly supply that particular support.
