It is currently March 28th, 2024, 12:50 pm

All times are UTC-04:00




Post new topic  Reply to topic  [ 13 posts ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: June 18th, 2008, 7:49 am 
Offline
Extreme Ghostbuster
Extreme Ghostbuster

Joined: May 27th, 2008, 9:23 pm
Posts: 21
Zodiac: Virgo
Okay, I have a topic for some interesting discussion, given the impending video game.

Some of you who have been writing fanfic for a while know about the phenomenon of getting jossed (definition from The Fanfiction Glossary):

Quote:
As in Buffy creator Joss Whedon. A fanfic author's theories on what "really happened" in a canon plothole are "jossed" when the canon source provides information which contradicts those fan theories. Ie. all fanfics dealing with how Angel got out of Hell were jossed when his return was shown in an actual episode.


Does this bother you? Would you continue a story that you'd started even if you got jossed?

This happens all the time in the Star Wars fandom, to the point where only the most serious fans will keep up with every little bit of canon, and most fics end up being AUs of some kind of another. (Also because many of the more recent changes to the canon suck, to put it mildly; everyone's got their own personal canon.)

Myself, I see the RGB/EGB continuity as its own entity, in a way; the movies and the video game fall into one box, and the cartoons into another, since they contradict one another in some rather important ways. It's not important to me to reconcile them.

What do you think?


Top
   
PostPosted: June 18th, 2008, 8:17 am 
Offline
Editorial Staff
Editorial Staff
User avatar

Joined: November 3rd, 2007, 7:03 am
Posts: 165
Zodiac: Cancer
Oy...how many times do we have to have the same conversation?

Aaaanyway...

This whole website is based on the idea that the movies and cartoons can and should exist in the same continuity, and Fritz has been stressing for months over the idea that the video game will "Joss" his stories.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that a fan fiction writer should always know what they're getting into.

When it comes to Buffy or Star Wars, if you're going to write about a TV show or movie series that's still ongoing and you have the outright stubborn stupidity to explain something that the REAL creator will explain himself in due time, you DESERVE to have your work be all for nothing.

Now, Ghostbusters on the other hand is not still ongoing. Until just recently, the franchise was dead for a decade, untouched by Aykroyd and Ramis for two decades. We were well within our rights as writers to fill in the blanks on our own and now we find ourselves in the precarious position of do we alter our stuff to co-exist with the new Word of God, or do we say "fuck you Dan, we're the stewards now"?

Frankly, I think the second path is not only pretentious, but a fan fic writer has to be conscious at all times that the number of nerds who will actually read fan fiction, and his or her's in particular, is minuscule and he can't afford to lose them by saying "No, I'm not going to acknowledge the thing the entire rest of the franchise's fanbase is in love with."

Writing for yourself and no one else can be a fun exercise, but you can't make an ongoing thing of it without eventually giving in to the depressing pointlessness.

I should know. I've tried. I've got a whole universe of superhero concepts. Y'know how many people gave a shit besides me? Maybe three, and only because I let them contribute. And notice I said "gave", past tense. Because they don't anymore.

I'm also not against the concept of the "retcon" when it makes more sense the new way. I LIKE that Vader's ghost at the end of Return of the Jedi is now Hayden instead of Guy-Nobody-Recognizes.

I also recognize that GB2 "Jossed" RGB big time and we made it work anyway. This community has a LONG history of taking shit and making sense of it through sheer force of will.

Even the prop guys have a fanon. Those people have made up names for every single part of the pack, and everyone uses those names now as if they're official.

I'm pretty sure you can't actually be a Ghostbusters fan, or at least not a creatively contributing one, without being prepared to bullshit on command.

So if the video game "Josses" us, I'm flexible, I'm prepared to take it on the chin. The game's still within a time period that the guys were canonically active, so how much damage could it possibly do?

Now if they get to creating content that takes place in or after '97, writing out the EGBs, then I'll have my standard issue stubborn-old-man-torch-and-pitchfork at the ready.

_________________
Image


Top
   
PostPosted: June 18th, 2008, 10:26 am 
Offline
Extreme Ghostbuster
Extreme Ghostbuster

Joined: May 27th, 2008, 9:23 pm
Posts: 21
Zodiac: Virgo
Okay!

Didn't mean to stir the pot there; I'll be in my bunk. Or something.


Top
   
PostPosted: June 18th, 2008, 10:51 am 
Offline
Editorial Staff
Editorial Staff
User avatar

Joined: August 24th, 2007, 2:07 pm
Posts: 1065
Location: Suffolk, UK
Zodiac: Cancer
Well, it is a touchy subject at the moment, but I'm happy to talk to you about it.

Arafel wrote:
Does this bother you? Would you continue a story that you'd started even if you got jossed?


I want to say yes. But I can say that without having to worry too much about contradictions in canon, as my main focus is EGB. The video game (not that I really care about video games, but anyway, this video game) is pretty much saying that never happened (from what I hear).

That's okay. The EGB cartoon is still canonical, as far as I'm concerned, and if I was going to accept the contradictions of the video game then I'd be saying, Okay, these characters I've been writing about never happened. Those cartoons were all a dream or something. But I guess choosing between two totally contradictory canons isn't quite the same as being faced with a new canon that only contradicts the fanfiction.

If anyone in a position of power did want to continue the EGB timeline, then I don't know what I'd do. I guess it would depend on whether I liked what they did. Maybe I'd bring an end to the continuity I've got going on at the moment, put it all to one side and still love it but call it AU, and start some fanfics based on this amazing new thing. Or maybe I'd hate it, and stubbornly keep doing what I'm doing for whoever wants to read it.

Of course, I'm a firm believer that one can never really know the answer to a hypothetical question, so maybe that was all nonsense.

Since Fritz said he liked my fanfiction so much he wanted to incorporate it into his Timeline, I almost always tailor it towards that (otherwise I call it apocrypha). If he decides to change anything, that may affect what I'm doing, but at this stage I really have no idea.

So what is my answer, after all that? It's that I would always want to stay true to myself, and my favourite bit of canon, as much as possible.

_________________
'Extreme Ghostbusters was the best-written show, because it wasn't just about the ghostbusting, it was about the characters.' - Rino Romano

EGB Fan's EGB Fans
EGB Fan on FFN and AO3


Top
   
PostPosted: June 18th, 2008, 3:30 pm 
Offline
Administrator
Administrator
User avatar

Joined: July 26th, 2007, 5:15 pm
Posts: 3693
Location: Indianapolis
Zodiac: Taurus
Nah, no problem bringing this here. Most of the complaining (mostly mine) has been on the Video Game forum (Just go to the thread called "Dissenting Opinions" if you have a high whine tolerance) so maybe a place to hash out the specific issues in the Fan Project forum isn't a totally bad idea.

As Jeff said, the franchise was mostly dead for most of the time we've been working. I broke the first ground on the Timeline in 1998, when EGB was still relatively new, but it wasn't going to be continued and, for a long time, it looked like nothing official would ever come out.

The 88MPH comic came and went. It was pretty good, and having been set just a few months after GB1 we were able to smooth it in pretty well. There's no doubt in my mind that it would have gotten harder if the ongoing series had come out...but it didn't, so the point is moot right now.

The iBooks novel "The Return" was a little more problematic. Having Venkman and Winston take turns as Mayor of New York just simply wouldn't work if we wanted to keep EGB's depiction of the RGB's "futures" intact. We did establish Arnie Lapinski as the Mayor between movie/RGB Mayor Lenny Clotch and EGB Mayor Edwin McShane. I wouldn't consider it impossible that Xanthador tried to invade Earth in the summer of 1989; there was a "real world" election in 1989, and it's the only place that the depiction of Janine and Louis still going out would "work" in GBOT continuity. But putting it there would throw out the book's mention of it being two years after GB2; as the book was drowned at birth by Barnes and Noble, and there were no sequels, we've pretty much decided that it's also moot.

So where does this leave us with the video game? There are a number of issues that will require resolution in regards to the GBOT continuity. Examples...

(Arafel's new here...if you've been here for a while you've seen most of these before)

1. Marty Stu. The phrase "fifth Ghostbuster" is just one of those ones that can be fingernails on a chalkboard after you read enough bad fan fic. It seems like I keep reading contradictory things--will he be customizable, to make him a more "identifiable" avatar for the player? Other things I've read make it sound like he will have a "set" appearance. We can't do much to plot with or around him until we know for sure the answers to those questions. And where has he been for the last seventeen years, as he was never mentioned in EGB or any fan fics until now?

2. The time frame. As Jeff mentions, it is a time that the team was active...barely. To accomidate the EGB continuity, we did stories such as "The Zodiac Imperative", set in June 1991, to explain why "There were no more ghosts to bust" and actually show the breakup in late 1991 in "As Dreams Fade". "ADF" never mentions a Fifth Ghostbuster at any time.

And what if sequels advance the time frame further? Say the game is a massive hit and the sequel is set in 1992, showing the Ghostbusters as massively successful? We had Winston get married post-RGB in December 1991. "Our" 1992 shows the ex-Ghostbusters seperated and settling into their RGB/EGB interim lives. "For Worse or For Better" takes place in 1992. By 1993 we have "Nodus" with Egon in the absolute depths of depression.

I've suggested one idea that should be on the table would be, if it would make the most other "problems" work out better, moving the events of the game to 1998 or later. It doesn't seem to attract much enthusiasm, though.

3. The new gear. Problem A: Where have these wifty new gadgets been the last seventeen years? Why didn't the EGBs ever have "electron cannons" and "slime tethers"? Problem B: Reconciling some of those things with the way GB universe physics have been understood for the last twenty plus years.

(I admit for myself, I have trouble picturing myself using those in any of my stories. Hell, I barely use the Slime Blowers, and they've been around for almost twenty years--the proton pack has proven effective and versatile enough in and of itself. Speaking solely for myself, I swear the "electron cannon" and "slime tether" sound an awful lot like "dematerializers" and "ghost gummers", the shitty equipment the Filmation Ghost Busters used.)

4. "New Love Interest". Another fingers on chalkboard reference. The news sources can't even seem to agree on who's love interest she is. Some have hinted that she's Venkman's (Yeah. After his love life dominated both movies. There's a way to bury the complaint that GB2 was too derivative of the first movie :roll: ). It's also been suggested that she'll be Marty Stu's love interest, which would make a lot more sense plot-wise, but we just don't know.

I guess that's the problem right there: We just don't know.

Will we make it work? Yeah. Probably. But I think it will take some flexibility, and not just on my/our side: part of how we made GB2 and RGB work together is by not being afraid to take some elements of them and say "Yeah, we know Aykroyd/Ramis/JMS/ect. said *this*, but we have to throw it out or downplay it to make it work in the broader context." Pappi Sargassi; a "replacement" for Arnie Lapinski; Gozer cults (not necessarily Gozer itself); the "ECTO-H2O"; I don't think those things will cause much problems at all. Marty Stu and Evil!Slimer may take a lot more work.

We won't know for sure until this thing is out.
:)

_________________
Image


Top
   
PostPosted: June 18th, 2008, 4:19 pm 
Offline
Editorial Staff
Editorial Staff
User avatar

Joined: August 24th, 2007, 2:07 pm
Posts: 1065
Location: Suffolk, UK
Zodiac: Cancer
Fritz wrote:
1. Marty Stu. The phrase "fifth Ghostbuster" is just one of those ones that can be fingernails on a chalkboard after you read enough bad fan fic. It seems like I keep reading contradictory things--will he be customizable, to make him a more "identifiable" avatar for the player?...

4. "New Love Interest". Another fingers on chalkboard reference. The news sources can't even seem to agree on who's love interest she is. Some have hinted that she's Venkman's (Yeah. After his love life dominated both movies. There's a way to bury the complaint that GB2 was too derivative of the first movie :roll: ). It's also been suggested that she'll be Marty Stu's love interest, which would make a lot more sense plot-wise, but we just don't know.


So... anyone playing the game has to take the part of a heterosexual male? I can see a problem right there.

_________________
'Extreme Ghostbusters was the best-written show, because it wasn't just about the ghostbusting, it was about the characters.' - Rino Romano

EGB Fan's EGB Fans
EGB Fan on FFN and AO3


Top
   
PostPosted: June 18th, 2008, 4:58 pm 
Offline
Administrator
Administrator
User avatar

Joined: July 26th, 2007, 5:15 pm
Posts: 3693
Location: Indianapolis
Zodiac: Taurus
One of the many things we Just Don't Know. :lol:

_________________
Image


Top
   
PostPosted: June 19th, 2008, 12:22 pm 
Offline
Editorial Staff
Editorial Staff
User avatar

Joined: September 19th, 2007, 9:45 pm
Posts: 184
Location: New York, New York. Manhattan Island (SoHo district)
Zodiac: Scorpio
Well, I'm tempted to say "What Jeff said." He and I share the same sentiment.

EGBFan wrote:
I want to say yes. But I can say that without having to worry too much about contradictions in canon, as my main focus is EGB. The video game (not that I really care about video games, but anyway, this video game) is pretty much saying that never happened (from what I hear).


Then you hear wrong. This is proof that some of your biases are based on stuff that isn't even true.

The game is set in 1991. The Extreme Ghostbusters are just coming out of GRADE SCHOOL in 1991. EGB isn't even a concept yet.

There is nothing current to say that the EGBs couldn't have come along at the later date that they do.

_________________________________

I myself have several theories in progress, and others are looking at them, too.

For a long time, we've been masters at "making it work with little to no change." I see this no different. Unless this game takes the whole iBooks turn, I don't see any complications in the near future...we'll just have to wait and see.

Arafel wrote:
Okay!

Didn't mean to stir the pot there; I'll be in my bunk. Or something.


Did you just sneak in a "Firefly" reference? If you did, you just won some points with me.

IMHO, Firefly was Joss' only good show.


Top
   
PostPosted: June 19th, 2008, 1:11 pm 
Offline
Extreme Ghostbuster
Extreme Ghostbuster

Joined: May 27th, 2008, 9:23 pm
Posts: 21
Zodiac: Virgo
FWIW, my take on the GB3-ish video game is just that - it's a game, with all the pros and cons of being a game. Certainly there's going to be another story added into the mix, and that's something that the author can choose to address or not, but as for the new inventions... well, since it IS a video game, you have to have stat bonuses and Super Saiyan Level Ups and save points and weapon mods and all that nonsense. IMO, Mr. Marty Stu will be disposable in fanfic as well; I might name him Ron Mexico and another will name him Abe Froman, and no two will be the same. So, is Mr. Stu still, honestly, a character, a part of the canon? Or just a vehicle for the Everyman?

I can understand a good amount of frustration at painstakingly taking the time to make sure that everything is retrofitted into one timeline, though. One more thing comes along, and you're left with "oh for crying out loud."

DrVincentBelmont wrote:
Did you just sneak in a "Firefly" reference? If you did, you just won some points with me.


Firefly was a great show. For Christmas, I had one of my friends knit my husband a Big Damn Hat - he loves it, esp. when I tell him he looks like Jayne.


Top
   
PostPosted: June 19th, 2008, 3:03 pm 
Offline
Editorial Staff
Editorial Staff
User avatar

Joined: September 19th, 2007, 9:45 pm
Posts: 184
Location: New York, New York. Manhattan Island (SoHo district)
Zodiac: Scorpio
Arafel wrote:
FWIW, my take on the GB3-ish video game is just that - it's a game


In retrospect, you could also say the same thing about the cartoon. "it's just a cartoon."

Before Fritz thinks that I callously betrayed him, I will let you all know right now that this is NOT how I feel about RGB.

In fact, to be completely fair, even the same could be said of the movies or the comics... "It's just a movie." "It's just a comic book."

Quote:
with all the pros and cons of being a game. Certainly there's going to be another story added into the mix, and that's something that the author can choose to address or not, but as for the new inventions... well, since it IS a video game, you have to have stat bonuses and Super Saiyan Level Ups and save points and weapon mods and all that nonsense.


It's current knowledge that they didn't want "health pickups" or "power ups" and shit in the game.

Save points...for crying out loud, there needs to be a mechanic to save your damn game, man. I mean, seriously, even if you novelized the game, you'd leave that stuff out.

When S.D. Perry novelized the "Resident Evil" chronicles, she didn't have them sitting at typewriters to log all of their progress.

Quote:
IMO, Mr. Marty Stu will be disposable in fanfic as well; I might name him Ron Mexico and another will name him Abe Froman, and no two will be the same. So, is Mr. Stu still, honestly, a character, a part of the canon? Or just a vehicle for the Everyman?


Well, we may have a candidate for "Marty Stu," as someone who's been around for quite awhile, and has no need for an elaborate introduction, won't fuck with established relationships or continuity, the community will know him already, and "where the hell has he been for seventeen years?" is already answered.

Whether it will be this guy or not remains yet to be seen.

Anything could change of the coming months, so NOTHING IS SET IN STONE! We're not officially deciding anything until we have more concrete information.

Quote:
I can understand a good amount of frustration at painstakingly taking the time to make sure that everything is retrofitted into one timeline, though. One more thing comes along, and you're left with "oh for crying out loud."


You see, I don't. I think Jeff is the only other person who truly is Zen about about this entire thing.

My martial arts hero, Bruce Lee, took something from Zen and made it his own, and made it his martial arts philosophy. I think there are many lessons to be learned, and it applies VERY much to even fanfiction.

I think there are many people who should take something away from it, as well:

"Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind" ~Bruce Lee

This is my personal philosophy on this...and is most of the reason why I'm not as upset as most are.


Top
   
PostPosted: June 20th, 2008, 4:53 am 
Offline
I Have No Life
I Have No Life
User avatar

Joined: August 24th, 2007, 2:20 pm
Posts: 811
Zodiac: Gemini
I would still like to say my mane concern was never about the time line , but with all the new fan's this will make . Yes we may get some that are ok but for every good one we may get 5 or 6 Brendan Rome's .

Fritz wrote:

3. The new gear. Problem A: Where have these wifty new gadgets been the last seventeen years? Why didn't the EGBs ever have "electron cannons" and "slime tethers"? Problem B: Reconciling some of those things with the way GB universe physics have been understood for the last twenty plus years.

(I admit for myself, I have trouble picturing myself using those in any of my stories. Hell, I barely use the Slime Blowers, and they've been around for almost twenty years--the proton pack has proven effective and versatile enough in and of itself. Speaking solely for myself, I swear the "electron cannon" and "slime tether" sound an awful lot like "dematerializers" and "ghost gummers", the shitty equipment the Filmation Ghost Busters used.)

well that might solve your problem right there . you can always say that after the events of the game the FGB sued .



Heck I still have a sore spot about the proton/slime pack my self . I felt a little pride in the designs that I made , but it feel like they're just pushed aside and rejected . as if the work me and Mick did never mated

_________________
Image

Image

pleas parden my speling but I'm a littel dislexik and can't tipe whel


Top
   
PostPosted: June 20th, 2008, 5:09 am 
Offline
Editorial Staff
Editorial Staff
User avatar

Joined: November 3rd, 2007, 7:03 am
Posts: 165
Zodiac: Cancer
I think there's a very simple and, frankly, obvious explanation for why we haven't used these new attatchments since '91.

They overheat the pack.

I mean, have you EVER seen it need to do this withOUT them?
Image

Needing to turn your stream off and vent the cyclotron repeatedly is pretty counter-intuitive to holding onto the ghost.

_________________
Image


Top
   
PostPosted: June 20th, 2008, 9:25 am 
Offline
Extreme Ghostbuster
Extreme Ghostbuster

Joined: October 25th, 2007, 8:04 pm
Posts: 72
Zodiac: Capricorn
TheRazorsEdge wrote:
I think there's a very simple and, frankly, obvious explanation for why we haven't used these new attatchments since '91.

They overheat the pack.

I mean, have you EVER seen it need to do this withOUT them?
Image

Needing to turn your stream off and vent the cyclotron repeatedly is pretty counter-intuitive to holding onto the ghost.


Ah, that makes excellent sense. I certainly wouldn't want that to happen. The pack's versatile enough. This is experimental equipment, after all.


Top
   
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic  Reply to topic  [ 13 posts ] 

All times are UTC-04:00


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 52 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron

EctoGreen © 2008, 2014 Fritz Baugh

Imageset from ClassyDark by ayasha : ASDesignz Themes : Black-Fusion.com © 2007
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Limited