State of the Lemur - 07/24/2015 · 3:35am Jul 25th, 2015
Hugs were invented for this
I learned a new term this week: "atom bomb." No, wait, that wasn't it. I meant "recursive fiction." Yeah.
Just what is recursive fanfiction? Well, "recursive" apparently means something that is repetitive, or--more specifically--something that stands to be repeated. This, I suppose, would work best with ideas. No doubt it's the same dayum thing that drove Friedrich Nietzsche horse-hugging insane. But, in regards to stories, I imagine that it highlights the very essence of fanfiction. Nothing is original. Everything is a reinvention of another idea, only seen through a new, rosier lens.
The problem is, fanfiction has... well... a very negative connotation to it. It's associated quite commonly with introverted internet geeketry, and to a great extent this is very true.
It's also immediately assumed that all fanfiction is amateurish and subpar. While I know for a fact that this can be quite true... erm... for myself, at least... I don't think it's a very fair definition in general. 'Cuz if we went with that gross generality, then it would only be right to cover every worldly philosopher and scientist and free thinker who has ever existed in the history of anything. Friggin' mosquitoes kamikazying themselves into the Great Blue Bug Lamp of Plato's shadow... I swear to Christmas.
But I can immediately see the appeal of a term like "recursive fiction." What's fanfiction? Why, it's a story that responds to another story. In a way, it's a very sincere, creative, provocative form of commentary. You take an idea that's been expressed in one angle and then you throw your own spin on it. Sound familiar? It's called fucking culture, bud.
That's why when most people roll their eyes at the announcement of a brand new superhero story (that has been previously told in cinema just a decade earlier), I don't even mind. Because the best thing about superhero comics is that legendary characters can be told and retold by different authors and suddenly we have multiple, unique spins on a singular idea. With characters as deep and intricate as Batman, Superman, the X-Men, etc--this makes for a whole bunch of really nifty stories. And y'know what... it's okay if we have to deal with these reinterpreted characters living and dying repeatedly, because the branches of the legend are all scrumptious in their own way, and we'll never truly wish to run out of delicious epics to grunt and chant about around the digital campfire.
That is not to say that one can have free reign to poop or fart on another person's original idea as they see fit. I'm all for the protection of creative properties... at least where money is concerned. In a free forum of conversation, however, I fully embrace the ability to produce one's own interpretation of a narrative and bring it to the observing eye.
And if you must know, that's how this piece of shit came about. Now, dun get me wrong, it was a piece of shit that I fully enjoyed squirting out. What drew me to push the log out to begin with was my reading experience with Zaponator's Blink and Titanium Dragon's Dying to Get There two weeks in a row. Now, before I even attempted perusing them for my silly "Clueless Reader" schnazz, I had the prevailing assumption--from casual glances--that the stories were intrinsically related. It took a full-testicle dive into Titanium Dragon's story to realized that... I was wrong... and yet I was... right?
It's very confusing, and just a little bit meta. Generally speaking, both stories stand well on their own, and they have such uniquely different tones/themes that they feel like they come from different planets. This is a relief, 'cuz Titanium Dragon's story makes no attempt whatsoever to reference Zaponator's fic... or even reference it. To me, that seems like a rather obvious omission--a simultaneous declaration of a story's creative independence. The meta part is where everyone knows that everyone knows that the two are related... y'know?
It wasn't until further inquisitions were made that I found out that "Blink" came from a Noble Jury conversation and--indeed--"Dying to Get There" was a cross spawn from a write off and a reflection on Zaponator's story. And, y'know what? I discovered that, while reading both fics (but mostly Titanium's story), my mind was already working super hard to try and come up with... a response. Like a literary response. Aka my own dayum fanfiction that would add an appendix to Titanium Dragon's story which was already an unofficial critical appendix to Zaponator's. So... it's like fanfictionception, in a way, and I'm discovering a secretly hidden hunger for this sort of thing the more and more I allow myself to delve into other people's horse words.
Let me reemphasize something rather blatant and pathetic about me. I hate reading. It's one of my least favorite past-times to do, and--perhaps--it explains why I'm so wonky (aka TERRIBLE) an author. It's a one-sided selfishness, really. I enjoy making words so that I can dominate the imaginations of other people, but I'm so damnably reticent to surrender 30 - 60 minutes of my own cerebral meanderings to works that other people have done. And, y'know, it's absolutely no fault of the other authors and their talents. I just... really really suck at paying attention to written shiet. Whenever I read, even if it's a dinky 3k word story for this weekly blargh, I gotta put on music or play an MLP:FiM episode in the background or else I'll fucking fall asleep from stagnancy. And even when I am paying attention, I can't sit still. I'm a squirming, uncomfortable mess. To top it all off, my mind stops paying attention about every three or four paragraphs, choosing instead to dart off into the abstract wild yonder, coming up with story ideas that branch off the material I'm currently ingesting.
So, to make a long story longer, I tend to write fanfiction in my head all the time... even when I'm reading. I guess this is sort of a good thing, cuz it means that the stuff I'm reading is a source of inspiration for me. But it kinda sucks that I seemingly don't have the gumption to just... sit back, relax, and allow my brain to play a movie spliced together by another person's creative words. I always feel like I gotta shove my mental dick inbetween the cogwheels so that I can rotate the machine in my favor. Perhaps there's an argument that can be made here of "creator" vs "consumer," but meh.
I always wondered if reading other peoples' work would get me to improve my writing. I'm not sure if that's working out at all, but I can already see where it's getting me to churn out new and newer ideas. I certainly am humbled by the talent I come across, especially when I realize that even the smartest, brightest, most talented lemurs out there also base their design process on the so-called "recursive fiction." And this is what brings us to this week's reviewed story.
There are two types of people in this world.
You've got liars, cheaters, rapists, manipulators, money-hoggers, murderers, and apathetic plebeian nobodies.
And then you've got Cold in Gardez, the last hope for the human race. I swear to Nietzsche, if someday the moon were to hit planet Earth and wipe out all humanity except for one single strand of DNA by which we can clone and repopulate the cosmos, I hope it's his sperm.
Do I sound biased? Only because I am. So long as this dude is writing ponifiction, then I'm not worried for the fandom. There's just so much about the dude that screams "awesome." His literature is simple, yet calculating. Every single paragraph leaves you wanting for more. His site blarghs are heart-moving, and his personal testimony inspiring. And for all of his talent, he doesn't spam the site with inane animated gifs, sexy horse vag, extraneous globs of pretense. Truth be told, he barely speaks or blarghs. But when he does, the whole dayum brony literary world listens, almost anticipating that his sheer power will blow us into tiny orgasmic bits. His author name even sounds like a goddamn rock band and it has its own fucking story to it. Just... f'naaaaa... every digital square inch of this guy is full of story, and it's intoxicating.
I first brushed invisible elbows with him back in 2012 when Wanderer D was doing some online interview thingy with me, Chromosome, and Vimbert. CiG was part of the same guest line-up, and I felt it'd be in everyone's best interest if I read some of his stuff so I could familiarize myself in advance with his style of writing. That's how I found myself reading The Carnivore's Prayer (a masterful tragedy) and Naked Singularity (one of the best comedies in the history of anything). I always assumed that there were better writers than mesa on Fimfic. Only after reading some of CiG's stuff did I have the reality of the matter hammered down for me. Since then, he's had my boundless respect... if not my boundless eyeballs.
I knew that when I chose to start reading shiet that I'd be tackling something of his again. So, I decided on Lost Cities. Why? Well, I heard some stuff about it--namely that it was a fanfic purposefully and completely devoid of plot or character interaction, which--as a "writer"--intrigued me. Second... as anyone who's read "Scale" or "Austraeoh" can tell you, I have a thing for purple-prosey scenery pr0n... aka massive world building. Combine that favored concept with the literary fingertips of Cold in Gardez and... well... huge fanfic boner time. I mean, for real, this damn fic tore my pants off and popped a new friggin' gash in the Ozone Layer.
But is it truly perfect? Well, no, nothing is. Well... almost nothing.
Suffice it to say, the flagrant lack of character interaction, dialogue, or any of that fuzzy poni poni poni nonsense made for... a somewhat hollow experience. But, don't get me wrong, CiG must have planned for this in advance. For what I call "hollow" he delivered as "famished." Every single segment of the fic--creative, drifting, whimsical paragraphs separated by simple line breaks--leaves you wanting for more detail. And the mind's eye gets tantalized enough, for there are a lot of these segments. Each of them fashions together a separate jigsaw piece to the puzzle, and even though we're given loads of information, we sort of get the idea that the whole picture is never fully completed, so that we feel just as lost and abandoned in our knowledge as the cities themselves... or the droves of ponies who--for some reason or another--were forced to leave them in mast exoduses/extinctions.
There's this epic sense of repetition... of rising and falling... of epic accomplishments and inevitable decline. Every city described is a melancholic portrait of something that was once supremely glorious, and it spells out in bold just how fleeting and temporary the substance is of the modern ponies who are around to observe these leftovers of past epochs. No explanation is ever truly given as to why the cities were abandoned. There are hints, of course, but they're left to one's imagination, tempting us to play detective in hopes that our own minds can be nearly as creative as the unseen narrator bestowing such fragmented knowledge with apathetic aplomb.
I suppose, in a way, you could say that this story is all a big exercise in cheating. I mean, it's basically providing exposition for a plot that never unfolds, or a story that shall remain forever hidden. In a way, it's a half-story. But, y'know what? I don't mind. Because I found myself feeling the same waves of inspiration and fanfictional ponderings as I felt in previous readings, only this time by a factor of eleven. Already it's made me wanna step up my game for future Austraeoh books, and it's also made me contemplate a way in which I could go back and resurrect the long-dead-and-buried "In the Darkness Where I Seek You."
So, there we have it again... another potential exercise in Recursive Fanfiction. Fitting, seeing as someone else has already tackled the challenge of writing a story much like CiG's. In fact, from his latest blargh, it would appear as though that literary challenge is still open. Who knows, maybe some crazy kaizo lemur will take a crack at it some day.
How amusing it is to find out, though, that CiG's Lost Cities is... curiously enough... an example of recursive fiction in its own right. More specifically speaking, it is more or less ponified response to the acclaimed Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, which CiG quotes numerous times at the start of each chapter. I happen to recognize the reference from a reputable scholarly source I once read called... erm... Listverse. So, in short, here you have a masterful pony fic created--at least in part--as inspiration from a masterful literary fic. It's recursive fiction at work, or at least an example of it done right. Maybe I should take a page out of this and someday attempt my ponified Heart of Darkness starring Flash Sentry and Shining Armor someday... ... ...naaaaaaaaaaah.
Whelp, Cold in Gardez's story deserves a rating, and for the majority of my reading session I was contemplating giving it less than five out of five because--Nietzsche dammit--the blatant lack of plot or dialogue still makes it count for something unqualified to be called actual story material, and one could also argue that it's far too universal to be labeled as an exclusively pony fic.
But then I stumbled upon this selection towards the end of Chapter 5: Fabled Cities - The Ice and What It Holds...
And so it went that every year thereafter, another sheet of ice flowed down the mountain, thinner than a foal's hoof, bringing with it another fragment of Windhome. Through chance or magic or fate these pieces sank onto each other, until over the centuries the cleaving glaciers sliced ancient Windhome apart and brought it here, to this cold coast, and slowly, slowly, slowly, the shards of Windhome sank, and the city itself was reborn.
Beneath the waves, now, far beneath the waves, Windhome's highest spire digs into the mud. And atop it grows a tower, upside-down, like the rest of the city. And it may be, if this odd miracle continues long enough, that eventually the inching glaciers will deliver every piece of Windhome to the ocean, and the basest stone will be exalted, and the sewers will twist like riddles amongst the kelp, and between the weak shafts of the sun tiny sparks of light will dance, as like will-o-wisps in the forest, and all the ghosts of this city, the first city, will find at last their graves.
And someday ponies will visit these watery inverted corridors. They will swim here, and teach their foals of the sorrow to which pride gives birth.
And... dammit...
God fucking dammit...
I can't give a pathetically average score to a story that so casually contains what is, beyond the shroud of the most singular doubt, the absolute best bunch of paragraphs I've ever read in any fanfic ever. That's the sort of shiet I might think up by accident and then slap a bloated 50k literary travesty around like a slimy cholesterol doughnut, thereby ruining the entire experience. But CiG knows what's up, and he slaps it there with finesse and calls it a day.
So, fuck it. Five gigantic star spiders:
Out of Five.
You've won again, you magnificent bastard. Just don't blow us up from the Green Zone on the moon.
So yeah. This happened. Took longer for it to happened than 4k did, but I'm not complaining. I have myself to blame, really. This last year has had... a very subpar bunch of fics from SS&E. I know I promised "longform fics" at the start of this year (to more than one person... ahem). But I don't seem to have the insanely crazy energy that I used to. Besides, most of my epically long fic ideas have always been stupidly dramatic or sad in nature, and I think we all know what's become of that. I was thinking about it the other day... about how Background Pony and a certain dead elephant in the room were more or less the sponges that soaked up every sad, depressing, antisocial, psuedo-philosophical thought I've had ever. In the wake of Lyra's unsunghood, I found myself wanting to do adventure stories, which is where stuff like Austraeoh and Appledashery get their fuel. Nowadays... all I really wanna write is silly, stupid, and cute. And, in a lot of ways, those are the prime ingredients that got me into the pony fandom to begin with. So I guess you could say I've immortalized that which I lurve, and it... pours out of every orifice I have left.
Ew.
Whatever the case, I feel like I have a new wind, and I'm gonna attempt uploading more stuff as they come along. Maybe I'll do something longform, but I've grown far... far past the sinkholish act of making promises. I believe, for the most part, I've done my fair share of literary shiet to be proud of. But there's more to share. There's always more to share.
A few weeks ago I had something of an epiphany... an idea that finally pulled me out of the slump that I've been in for so long, and that's the idea that I have ideas that deserve to be read, and by not getting cracking on them, I'm essentially robbing the marsupial alumni of provocative stories n'shiet. If that sounds pretentious and egotistical, so be it, but it's the one thing getting my groove on these days. Because, let's face it, sooner than later the Wasteland is gonna claim us just like it's claimed everything else, so might as well keep the rainbow beacon shining.
Also, princesses.
That's always a good source of inspiration. @_@
-SS&E
I swear...one of these days, I'm actually going to sit down and read through all of CiG's stuff. I've read a couple and have peen pretty impressed. Not "wowed", mind you, but definitely impressed.
And...y'know...it seems like the majority of opinions of what I see on the site says that he's well beyond the best thing since literary sliced bread, so...yeah. I feel I owe it to read through the major stuff.
On an unrelated note:
Why on earth would one stick their dick in between cogwheels? That sounds like an extremely painful ordeal.
Princesses. write about them more often, yes?
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Heck, I need to do that [CiG].
He is literally made of literary awesome
I know I always make ridiculous comparisons, but I think I've gone down the same path you have of enjoying dark and deeply depressing less than I used to. Background Pony is the first story I read from you, and I was fucking blown away. Truthfully I've never been much of a reader other than informational things, mostly Photography and Cinematography (I own 17 books on those subjects), and was unaware of the emotional power words held. Previously, I had become intensely, comically (to an outside viewer) emotional over music and films, before Background Pony of course. You see, I don't do drugs of any kind, I've just never been interested, and truthfully I'm terrified that I would become hopelessly addicted, here's why. The first time I read background pony, it was an emotional roller coaster that, without trying to spoil anything, wrecked the literal fuck out of my emotions. It was honestly one hell of high, one that I've been chasing ever since with no kind of success. I've read shitloads of dark and depressing fics, that just don't do it after Background Pony. I think the same way you burned all that angst and emotion out of yourself while writing those stories, I have while reading them. Now a days, I think Appledashery is my favorite story you've written. Truthfully, it's been a more intense high than Background Pony so far, and for less depressing reasons. And I don't think it's pretentious at all that you think you're robbing us of your stories. Firstly, I have been known to be pretentious so I couldn't judge if I wanted too, secondly, I couldn't agree more with that statement. You've got us hooked bro, it's like if the tobacco companies gave smokers a pack a day, then started giving them a pack a week. I kid, but seriously I don't think it's pretentious and I'm honestly blown away that you can release a chapter of Austreaoh and Appledashery every fucking day, let alone write other fics on top of that. Oh and by the way, while I might of grown out of my teenage emotions, I would still love to get lost in a story as deep and intense as Background Pony again. Not trying to throw around suggestions, just saying, it was one hell of a high. Either way as always I'll read whatever you write and I'll probably love it. Damn I ramble on, this has kinda become The state of the Sevey, a sub state of State of the Lemur of which I ramble on about immature comparisons I make about you're writing and something relatable to me. Ahh well, I suppose there are worse things, (than getting emotionally attached to fanfiction based on My little Pony, to the point where it's extremely comparable to drug addiction?) Maybe there aren't worse things. Not exacly how I thought I'd spend the best years of my life, but fuck it it's fun, (same thing a drug addict would say?) Hmm, you guys don't know of a My Little Pony Fanfic addicts anonymous would you?
F'naaaaa.
I've really been meaning to read Lost Cities (or at least a few of CiG's fics cuz from what I hear he's like the second coming of Jesus), but life and work has a way of getting in the way of pastel horse fics n'stuff. Ugh.
Background Pony was one of the first fics - if not the first - I read from you and I've gotta say that it's probably colored my perusing a bit too much. I find myself searching sometimes for deep roller coasters of emotion that just smash you in the muzzle with tragedy and tears head-on at the end.
I don't know. Maybe it means something and I should really think about getting my head checked.
Naaaah.
You wanted Ponified "Heart of Darkness"?
CiG really is the man. The way he can build up to a point he's trying to make with a few paragraphs and then drive it straight through your heart like a spear made of pure awesome with only a sentence or two is absolutely incredible.
I really liked that elephant... Oh well, onto bigger and better things I guess!
Maaaaaaan.
Also, I'm super happy Lost Cities inspired you. I really love that fic. I forget all the dayum time that you're not a reader, otherwise I'd have forced you to read that sooner. Great critique, as well.
Oh, you :)
And yes, that's always been one of my favorite bits of exposition. For an experiment in writing, I think it turned out pretty well.
And if you haven't read Calvino's Invisible Cities yourself, you should. It's a great source of ideas (although, I didn't read it until after I'd written Lost Cities. I did it backwards).
WandererD has a cool accent. I wish he would do more of those interview things.
And freak, those are some paragraphs. I guess I need to go read the thing.
Hold up- You "knew how End of Ponies was gonna end before you started writing it"?
This... this is a good friggin' thing. This story, out of the ones you've teased over the past couple years, is the one I'd like to read the most by you in a complete form. What's there of it now, in Short Scraps, is great, but maaaaaaaan, I'd love the full version.
Hm, I just realised - is Honorary Cutie Mark Crusader still happening, with Ponky having left 'n all?
CiG is the man. All the Moral Remains is one of my favorites.
Congrats on 50,000 marsupials.
Fanfiction, and even recursive fanfiction, is a lot like making the lightbulb. There were lightbulbs of various designs before Edison's, but he's the one who, building off of their works, actually nailed the design that even then would lead to today's widely varied and useful bulbs.
Sometimes you make a better design, sometimes it's worse, sometimes it's wildly off course. But without all those other ones, how would you know where to even begin?(Other then at the very beginning of course) And without that refinement, how do you eventually reach that level where it becomes a viable tool instead of just a novelty someone made?
Then, once you have studied and gained experience with the lightbulb, you can make your own design. Something that's clearly inspired by the original, yet obviously quite different. The LED light. Lightbulb MK2.
And then there's those of us who have short attention spans and simply figure out a thousand ways not to make a lightbulb. But we get cool shelves full of things to stare at!
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Having just finally sat down and read it, I wholeheartedly concur.
Releasing it one journal a day? Now, wouldn't that be some delicious torture?...
Well, I wasn't planning to read that.