/ j / 2015-02 / 07_r0319

10in10 about fan fiction

The "Fan Fiction" 10in10 album is dedicated to the notion that if copyrighted material is disallowed on a colonization vessel, fan fiction becomes the only way that "important cultural touchstones" are remembered.

For information on the 10in10 challenge, see: fawm.org/forums/topic/4849/

While I tried to keep to the spirit of the 10in10, the big difference between the "Fan Fiction" set and the "Insects" set is that "Insects" was done in a top-down lyrics, melody, (then whatever) fashion while "Fan Fiction" was done in a bottom-up instruments, melody, lyrics manner. This was major for me, because I found I could open my mouth and start singing along to a tune and have things fit and make sense. (I didn't know I could work like that.)

Unfortunately, it was when I sat down to start singing that I realized my BPM setting was way off. Thus the songs are all too long.

Initially, I had some different thoughts for what I'd be doing. I've concluded I'm going to need to work on some cover songs to get a better feel of the instruments. While the current result is a little experimental, it started out like a variation of hymn-filk.

The songs in this set are composed of six measures from five hymns. (This is the same number of measures used by "Insects", but Insects was 145 BPM and this is 120.) All the hymns were in common time and in the key of G. (Unlike "Storage Crates" which uses the key of C.) Just eight virtual instruments were used, but I tried not to use the same combination on any two songs. The hymns were separated in to SATB parts (except one that had two parts combined in the MIDI). Then the parts were mixed up so that no song has parts from just one hymn, and the tune I sang was pulled in (from the set of five hymns) to try to be different both horizontally (among the melodies to sing) and vertically (within a particular song).

Song-specific notes:

Spock / Kirk

Imagine that all the history of "Star Trek" being culturally important is preserved, but due to copyright restrictions when people learn about Star Trek (The Original Series) the easiest thing to find is slash, to the point that scholars theorize that it was a pornographic show that had a few non-pornographic fan-fiction stories written.

Fan fiction will reach for the stars

There's realistically very little copyright enforcement that can happen across interstellar distances. The mother planet loses too much if they cut off communication due to a daughter planet ignoring copyright. It is easier to just not send anything covered by traditional copyright.

When all that is left is free

Important cultural touchstones can't be lost, but they can be skewed to the point where future generations don't understand the original meaning. Like the shifting meaning of language, except multiplied by a game of telephone.

Imagine This

If the revised hero's journey, de-facto includes romance along the way, the subcultures that are uncomfortable with this would be more inclined to orient along the lines of complete cultural isolation.

Han Shot First

The canonical stories in a series would turn in to little more than shared -- but unknown -- back-story among a widely divergent set of stories and cross-overs. However, in some cases there may be very little disagreement as to what happened, and fans might revisit it to make sure everyone knew exactly what happened.

[EDIT: Greedo's name was originally misspelled. You might be able to make it out in the song, or you might not.]

Firefly

In some cases, the popularity of a show among fans might persist right up through launch of the colony ship. Instead of just six episodes and a single movie, the true cultural impact will be preserved. As fan-driven literature, the romantic notion of a "Space Western" may persist longer than the Western it was derived from.

Rewrite

Once established on a new planet and out from under the reigns of copyright, the series that left a lasting impression on the colonists, as well as the points in the series which seem particularly relevant to the important fan fiction could be rewritten by the fans, either as best they remembered it, or as it "should have" been written.

Mary Sue

As the colonists rewrote their common myth they would invariably bring in a "Mary Sue" character now and then. If the author and character was well liked enough by the community it could forever shift the story. Done well this can increase the relevance of a story to the community. ("I like the version with grandmother in it." "Everyone does. That's the official version now.")

All that's remembered

This seems like a perfect way to end the set.