Via Latina(A Short, Sweet Vent)

All I see in my Latin course, repeated in such a way as to be an obsession, is the phrase: "Build your Via Latina". It's how they want us to think of it. Paving a road. I can't think of it that way. I've never been helped so simply by an analogy like that.

What I can do, though, is think of it as a puzzle. It's certainly been puzzling. But when translating, I've found the best way I can do it is to find words I know, and arrange them as context fits, till they make sense.

Then my teacher sends it back with a poor score because it wasn't exactly what she imagined. But my own disdain for her isn't that important in this post...maybe a different post. It's worth covering. Or spewing, as it is. Anyways, under this system of teaching they have for online courses in Florida, the grasp of even the simplest concepts has been a mental claw game, where the claw is too big and pointed and it severs the arm off the teddy bear that is my understanding.

It's also worth mentioning that I have a deep distaste for non-traditional learning systems. What a failure of innovation, they are.

Back on topic, I'm almost finished with the course. 16 assignments left. Including tests and phone calls. I'm about to have both of those things, soon enough, followed up by another one or two of each. It seems the closer I get to being done, the more they want to try and keep me in. It's a frustrating business, dealing with this class.

After this, I'll be taking Latin 2. I can only hope that I have a different teacher than the forgetful, impersonal one I have now. But at least I'm taking a moment to vent. That's always going to be very important 

Right, must get moving again; Keep working.

Hoping for the best, as always.

On Fanfiction(Inspired by Meghan McCarthy)

A while ago, I saw a Twitter post by Meghan McCarthy asking about fanfiction, because she had never been on a show which actually gained a fandom which wrote stories based on the show(https://twitter.com/MMeghanMcCarthy/status/372960233640833024).

Upon seeing that tweet, I started thinking about it, for a while. I came up with some thoughts, and since I have a blog, now, I can put them down, the way I'd like to:

One question posed was "If something is canon but [the readers/writers] aren't crazy about it" is the fanfiction looked down on, if it goes against the established canon. It's a question requiring context, and can go case by case, I think. On one hand, a person can break canon in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic(the show that Meghan is talking about in that tweet) simply by writing a work in which Twilight Sparkle does not have wings. Since that's current canon, it would be a break from the story. That probably won't be looked down upon, as the wings were controversial in the first place, and by this point, no one should care whether or not she has them, probably.

Not that it's awful if they do care.

But the point stands, that it's a break in canon that could be ignored. There are some things, however, a person typically will take heat for if they break. Self-insert fics take a lot of flak, as the writer of the story has broken established canon, and put himself into the story. In most circles of fanfiction writers, that's bad on principle. So that's a good example of what might be looked down on.

I'll admit that I've written a fanfiction or two, and one of them broke canon. This one simply took an "alternate universe" sort of turn, and was tagged as such. This is generally within an acceptable breach of canon, in most contexts. It's an exploration of "what if", and is even done in show for some television programs(see Futurama, for a good example, where they used a machine to answer their "what if" questions).

There are also stories that didn't break canon, but recently, canon broke their fanon, and haven't been edited. We can leave those out of the discussion, though. I just thought it worth mentioning, briefly.

Resuming this, after a long time of leaving it. I probably still hold most of the views portrayed earlier, and I'm not looking back over it, so this may be repetitive, sorry.

Anyways, canon and fanon are generally only separated finely, fanon being mostly made up of things that haven't been covered in show, and are therefore free for opinion from viewers, until the day something is cleared by the medium itself.

So the issue here is timing.

Fanon can vary from person to person, until canon brings everyone back together. Typically, once canon is introduced, fanfiction takes some time to catch up, and authors are given a grace period where their fictions aren't discriminated against for being "outdated".

The reason for the game of catch up is simply because it takes time to write a fic, and if one is put out within a week or so of the canon update, then it was probably in the works, before then, and doesn't deserve scrutiny over it. If one is published a month or two after a new canon element is introduced, it probably could have been corrected for the new element, or was put in motion afterwards. At that point, people might start second guessing the story.

Time means more than anything else, in this argument. Whether a fic is looked down on, or not, for breaching canon is up to time, and many other variables, as well as a reader's opinion. While speculation is fun, I think I'd better stop writing on it before I truly am caught up in circles.

Thanks for reading. Sorry I took such a long break, mid-way through this. The flow probably got choppy, because of it, but that's fine.

-Payne.