Paul Gadzikowski

• Sun, 13:08: Perhaps I should remember this truism for my next affirmation. http://t.co/6wZLbmbvYd
• Sun, 13:56: RT @jaythenerdkid: btw here's an article about how women and PoC invented the internet: http://t.co/DUMF73PPwP
• Sun, 14:10: RT @Public_Pers: Need to stop listening obsessively to #CabinPressure Vaduz. But I can't stop listening obsessively to #CabinPressure Vaduz…
• Sun, 14:10: RT @goingtheretosee: @the_author_ @jaythenerdkid Teachers reported they felt they were favoring the girls. Boys complained the girls got sp…
• Sun, 14:11: RT @goingtheretosee: @the_author_ @jaythenerdkid But in actual fact, the teachers were still calling on the girls LESS than 50% of the time.
• Sun, 15:48: #affirmation #arwen http://t.co/RPuX1QuUhd
• Sun, 15:57: Maybe next time I need character photo references for a Tumblr affirmation I should search in Tumblr instead of Bing.
• Sun, 16:23: RT @donnabrazile: Read and share. U.S. House panel: No administration wrongdoing in Benghazi attack - SFGate http://t.co/Vgy1cux2jU via @SFGate
• Sun, 16:48: @washingtonpost Saw the piece on autistic adults. No notice from the writer that they're human people, only their parents. Disappointing.
• Sun, 18:04: Tell Snyder before it's too late MT @KameronHurley The sound of grimdark being over"@io9: GOTG Record $94M Opening: http://t.co/zVE22EqIzC "
• Sun, 19:50: I wonder if I'm ready to start reading my webcomics list again. I spose there's only one way to find out.
• Sun, 19:54: RT @karon: What's the Venn diagram of people terrified Obama is bringing ebola to the US and people that didn't vaccinate their kids?
• Sun, 20:24: RT @mburnhope: You think a picture of a person standing up from a wheelchair shows "how much fraud there is" and then wonder why I'm scared to know you?
• Sun, 21:07: Read comics again after about two weeks. All that made me wonder what I'd missed was the Sunday sketches of cyborg gorillas at #SkinHorse.
• Sun, 21:26: RT @Wolfiesmom: #mylife #notreally #butyeah “@Suggest: Faking a smile has the ability to actually increase and boost your mood.”
• Sun, 21:31: This evening's earworm: Blue Suede, Hooked On A Feeling (NB I haven't seen the movie)
• Sun, 21:38: This is another comment that displays ignorance of even such fleeting acquaintence with the facts as can be secured… http://t.co/gnzc0emAkG
• Sun, 22:45: #affirmation #rocketracoon http://t.co/3H6pJABVtS
• Sun, 22:55: Photo: shanejayell: heroofthreefaces: shanejayell: philsandifer: bregma: kevinrfree: charlienight:... http://t.co/m4ICxGdgyN
• Sun, 22:57: RT @byharryconnolly: Actually, if you pretend it’s not about superman, Man of Steel isn’t as horrible.
• Sun, 23:27: RT @MelindaDC: Star witness against TX man put to death in '04 says he did it for the "perks." Willingham “never told me nothing." http://t…
• Sun, 23:47: RT @thewayoftheid: Always amazes me that the loudest opponents of breast feeding don't have to worry about pulling out a boob to feed a crying, hungry child.
• Mon, 06:43: comedy http://t.co/x67Hc2uYTz
• Mon, 07:20: #affirmation #sulu http://t.co/2s41TVZFGi
• Mon, 10:36: I dunno when I’ll see it. Someone please DM me the post-credits spoiler. (Prolly won’t even recognize the name, like Thanos.)

• Wed, 13:57: RT @JimZub: It's funny/sad seeing mainstream move-going audiences enjoying fun films while most comics seem hellbent on pretentious/grim/dour stories.
• Wed, 16:02: #doctorwho #year50 http://t.co/uZMNKLLxqv
• Wed, 17:50: Photo: qthewetsprocket: hugewiener: There was a party on May 3rd at the University of Southern California... http://t.co/R0EM9eByku
• Wed, 18:03: "If owning a gun and knowing how to use it worked, the military would be the safest place for a woman...." http://t.co/f8IwcegpsR
• Wed, 20:20: RT @laura_hudson: .@thelindywest killing it again, this time on the myth of female "purity": http://t.co/QPyW9yzYCF
• Wed, 20:27: #AKOTAS update: wonder how that custom started. http://t.co/h4JWbbaZiB #webcomics #kingarthur
• Thu, 06:48: The creators say they've preserved what made Trek special, but the studio suits say action is emphasized to draw international viewers.
• Thu, 06:48: *sigh* Guess I'll just have to decide for myself. What a drag.
• Thu, 11:43: RT @UrsulaV: Yes. This is EXACTLY how depression works. http://t.co/dw7Lhwid3t
• Thu, 11:43: The link in that retweet has been all over my feed today, with good reason. That just happened to be the instance at hand once I'd read it.
• Thu, 11:44: Read it.

Happy birthday, ursulav.

Happy birthday, ursulav.

ursulav

But the real reason I mention this is because I want to preserve in my journal things I've written in the comments on her post.

para_cynic

That's a fallacy. It's not that the characters don't belong to me. They do, because they belong to everybody, the way Hercules belonged to everybody two thousand years ago, and King Arthur belonged to everybody five hundred years ago, and Paul Bunyan belonged to everyone a hundred years ago. The fact that these characters who belong to everyone are copyrighted intellectual properties is a modern aberration. The hiccup in normality isn't that the characters are treated by me as if I own them, the hiccup is that big corporations own them.

For more academic arguments saying this same thing, google MIT professor Henry Jenkins.

nornagest

That's a great point but I'd argue that, while it reflects a new dynamic in the community folk hero's adjustment to the electronic communication age, the phenomenon of "canon" doesn't hold the omnipotence you seem to be arguing it does.

Characters like Buffy and Captain Picard are too new and young to be good examples. James Bond, on the other hand, has just featured in a very popular reenvisioning of his character (even if that "reenvision" was an exercise in bringing the characterization closer to what it had been in Fleming's novels than the films had ever achieved before). Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked which casts the Witch of the West as a sympathetic character is a bestseller, has been made into a stage musical, and has a new sequel out. The last two decades have presented movie theatres with comic remakes of mid-twentieth century cop tv dramas like Dragnet and Starsky and Hutch. And while Captain Picard is too new a character for such treatment, Captain Kirk is rumored to be getting a continuity reboot in the film J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias, What About Brian?) has in pre-production. And actually, Buffy was a movie before she was a tv show.

The concept of "canon" plays a large role in the creation and appreciation of fanfiction, but today's lasting community characters are truly no more restricted by it than the lasting community characters of all of human history before them. Me, I stopped applying the word "canon" to bodies of fiction, because I feel it implies things that aren't true.

I may add to this post if the discussion over there continues.

I read the Digger archives while they're free till the Eisner awards. I reread the discussion attempting to define evil and I still think Ed the hyena pariah nails it (unless you have a Graphic Smash subscription, this link will no longer take you to the page after the Eisner awards ) (at least, not till next year). Before I got that far in my rereading, however, I decided to try it myself.

• Perfection would be if everyone had everything they ever want (excluding harm to someone else) or need, and got it by doing exactly the work they wanted to do, even none.
• Good is if everyone gets everything they need and most of the things they want, because sometimes people want different, incompatible things but can be persuaded to compromise.
• Bad is when not everyone gets all of the things they need and want, because other people want incompatible things and won't compromise and there's a fight - verbal, legal or physical - and the other people win.
• Evil is when anyone is willfully deprived of what they need or want without recourse for the sake of, and by, another's greed or maliciousness or apathy or abuse of power.