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Musings on Historical Fic
It's odd that since becoming involved in the Sanctuary fandom, I've become more and more interested in fics set in historical periods. Okay. In one sense, not odd, because most of the characters from Sanctuary that utterly fascinate me are from the Victorian period. But odd, perhaps, compared to my approach to, and relative interest in, historical fics in other fandoms. When I look at the likes of Highlander, or Good Omens, or Sherlock Holmes, or even SPN if we're talking the angels ... I just seem to view historical fics differently in each case.
Which should be odd considering the sheer range of history available in some of those ... I mean, I find it slightly strange that I'm more interested in historical fic in Sanctuary, which has a range of about 200 years, compared to say Highlander, which has a range of 5000 (sort of, depending on how much you believe Methos isn't remembering), or Good Omens, which has a range of 6000-ish (on Earth, anyway). Maybe it's something to do with the fog-of-ages thing, where the further back you go, the more vague things become, and past a certain point it feels more like writing fantasy or myth than writing history. There's ... a different ethos, the farther back you go. Less research (in some ways - things are harder to check back then, so the audience doesn't expect as much accuracy, maybe?), more broad-strokes. Or something. Also, perhaps, to do with the fact that more recent periods are more exciting to modern people, owing to increased familiarity/extant legacies?
Of course, part of the difference there may be my different approach to the characters in those fandoms. In Highlander, for example, my approach is less 'Methos throughout history' and more 'Methos as history'. How the layers and layers of time have made this modern, ancient creature, and individual events/periods are less important than the cumulative effect they've had on this one being. Though ... okay, there is a little bit of that in Sanctuary, too, with Nikola, with Helen ... Anyhoo. And Good Omens ... it's sort of similar to that, and sort of inverse, in some ways, in that ... It's about Aziraphale and Crowley, for me, and how they've stayed the same, and how they've changed, and how ... it's all rather big-picture, broad-strokes, with them. Something remote and alien, looking out as the world shifts slowly beneath their feet, and it creeps inside of them, it does, but so, so slowly, over aeons.
With Sanctuary, it's more ... immediate. It's ... smaller, in some ways, and more exact. The length of time is only a couple hundred years, and these characters have been active and involved the whole way through. They're still young enough that it's all immediate to them, that it's all vitally important. They're still ... part of the world, in ways that the likes of Methos or the angels are not. It's a different angle, that makes the actual events somewhat more important, more directly relevant to the characters?
With the likes of Sherlock Holmes, or Pirates of the Caribbean, or other fandoms set wholly within one period, the angle is different again. In that case, fics don't strike me quite as much as 'historical fics' because the entire fandom is historical. It becomes less about history, and more just about the setting, about canon. There's a difference for me, for example, in reading a Sherlock Holmes fic set in 1888, and reading a Sanctuary fic set in 1888, mostly because with Holmes, that time is self-contained, where as with Sanctuary, that time has echoes forward and back, and leaves a very visible and active legacy in characters. So I view them differently, and approach them differently. Historical fic with Sanctuary (for me, anyway) is about picking up the threads that are going to echo. With Holmes, it's about the time that was in it, and the people that lived through it.
All of which adds up to me being very, very interested in historical Sanctuary fic (as evidenced by the exactly five of my fanfics that are actually set some time more recent than 1960), in a way that's very different to my interests in historical fic in other fandoms. It's ... sort of like a balance between the long-stretching fandoms like GO or HL, and the period fandoms like SH or PotC. Sanctuary hits that balance where it's all still relatively recent, relatively young, relatively active in the characters, and yet still also bridging centuries, and carrying legacies forward through multiple periods. It's ... interesting. *smiles*
It's odd that since becoming involved in the Sanctuary fandom, I've become more and more interested in fics set in historical periods. Okay. In one sense, not odd, because most of the characters from Sanctuary that utterly fascinate me are from the Victorian period. But odd, perhaps, compared to my approach to, and relative interest in, historical fics in other fandoms. When I look at the likes of Highlander, or Good Omens, or Sherlock Holmes, or even SPN if we're talking the angels ... I just seem to view historical fics differently in each case.
Which should be odd considering the sheer range of history available in some of those ... I mean, I find it slightly strange that I'm more interested in historical fic in Sanctuary, which has a range of about 200 years, compared to say Highlander, which has a range of 5000 (sort of, depending on how much you believe Methos isn't remembering), or Good Omens, which has a range of 6000-ish (on Earth, anyway). Maybe it's something to do with the fog-of-ages thing, where the further back you go, the more vague things become, and past a certain point it feels more like writing fantasy or myth than writing history. There's ... a different ethos, the farther back you go. Less research (in some ways - things are harder to check back then, so the audience doesn't expect as much accuracy, maybe?), more broad-strokes. Or something. Also, perhaps, to do with the fact that more recent periods are more exciting to modern people, owing to increased familiarity/extant legacies?
Of course, part of the difference there may be my different approach to the characters in those fandoms. In Highlander, for example, my approach is less 'Methos throughout history' and more 'Methos as history'. How the layers and layers of time have made this modern, ancient creature, and individual events/periods are less important than the cumulative effect they've had on this one being. Though ... okay, there is a little bit of that in Sanctuary, too, with Nikola, with Helen ... Anyhoo. And Good Omens ... it's sort of similar to that, and sort of inverse, in some ways, in that ... It's about Aziraphale and Crowley, for me, and how they've stayed the same, and how they've changed, and how ... it's all rather big-picture, broad-strokes, with them. Something remote and alien, looking out as the world shifts slowly beneath their feet, and it creeps inside of them, it does, but so, so slowly, over aeons.
With Sanctuary, it's more ... immediate. It's ... smaller, in some ways, and more exact. The length of time is only a couple hundred years, and these characters have been active and involved the whole way through. They're still young enough that it's all immediate to them, that it's all vitally important. They're still ... part of the world, in ways that the likes of Methos or the angels are not. It's a different angle, that makes the actual events somewhat more important, more directly relevant to the characters?
With the likes of Sherlock Holmes, or Pirates of the Caribbean, or other fandoms set wholly within one period, the angle is different again. In that case, fics don't strike me quite as much as 'historical fics' because the entire fandom is historical. It becomes less about history, and more just about the setting, about canon. There's a difference for me, for example, in reading a Sherlock Holmes fic set in 1888, and reading a Sanctuary fic set in 1888, mostly because with Holmes, that time is self-contained, where as with Sanctuary, that time has echoes forward and back, and leaves a very visible and active legacy in characters. So I view them differently, and approach them differently. Historical fic with Sanctuary (for me, anyway) is about picking up the threads that are going to echo. With Holmes, it's about the time that was in it, and the people that lived through it.
All of which adds up to me being very, very interested in historical Sanctuary fic (as evidenced by the exactly five of my fanfics that are actually set some time more recent than 1960), in a way that's very different to my interests in historical fic in other fandoms. It's ... sort of like a balance between the long-stretching fandoms like GO or HL, and the period fandoms like SH or PotC. Sanctuary hits that balance where it's all still relatively recent, relatively young, relatively active in the characters, and yet still also bridging centuries, and carrying legacies forward through multiple periods. It's ... interesting. *smiles*
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