Websnark

Comment from: gwalla posted at April 29, 2005 3:28 AM

I've been reading Fans for a long time, and I found the ending hard to take. Not disappointing, just...difficult. The climax referenced so many previous story points, even really minor ones (like a story in script-and-emoticon form that I'd thought was a one-off and skipped), that I can't tell which parts were old and which were new half of the time. Like Julia, a character who had appeared *once* AFAIK, previously known only as "Girl Under a Tree Reading Clarke", who was a favorite among some forum posters for reasons that elude meÛthey refer to her being "unlucky in love" but where was that established?

As for the Rikk/Rumy/Alisin thing...that doesn't really bother me even though I feel like I should think it's a cop-out, mainly because it kind of works. Alisin has of course been established as bi pretty much from the beginning, and then there's the Alisin/Rumy party incident. Rumy of course has been a Rikk/Alisin shipper at the same time she's had a monster crush on Rikk, so that works. The only missing piece is Rikk, who has failed to think of Rumy in That Way for nearly the entire series, but it seems in-character for him to accept a less orthodox marital arrangement to make things work our for everybody. Also, my experiences have led me to believe that IRL this sort of semi-formal three-way commitment isn't quite as rare as one would expect.

The part of the whole everything-works-out-for-everyone thing that does kind of bother me is Alisin becoming a nurse. I mean, wasn't she a high school dropout? And then she gets into med school while skipping college? It's not just that the med school bent the rules by letting her in due to celebrity, but even if she applied herself 100% to med school she still wouldn't have the requisite knowledge from undergrad classes, and furthermore what study skills she did have had probably atrophied during her 24 hour party people period.

Hmm...that kind of turned into a rant. Sorry about that.

Comment from: Ray Radlein posted at April 29, 2005 4:09 AM

The part of the whole everything-works-out-for-everyone thing that does kind of bother me is Alisin becoming a nurse. I mean, wasn't she a high school dropout? And then she gets into med school while skipping college? It's not just that the med school bent the rules by letting her in due to celebrity, but even if she applied herself 100% to med school she still wouldn't have the requisite knowledge from undergrad classes, and furthermore what study skills she did have had probably atrophied during her 24 hour party people period.

You can become an LPN with much less training than would be required to become an RN; a GED, a good brain, a good work ethic, and a couple of good years, and you're in; after that, you can continue upgrading, so to speak, while working as a nurse. For that matter, you can start out as a nurse assistant or an orderly while you're studying to become an LPN (I seem to recall that one of the orderlies on St. Elsewhere did exactly that through the course of the series).

Here's Wikipedia's take on LPNs: They "...usually have two years of training in body function & structure, drugs and practical patient care. [...] They can perform simple as well as complex medical procedures and usually operate under the supervision of professional registered nurses (RNs) or physicians. They can administer most medications, perform measurements (blood pressure, temperature, etc), record-keeping, help with patient-care planning, first aid, CPR, sterile and isolation procedure and basic care."

None of that seems particularly far out of Alisin's reach; she certainly has a good practical knowledge of "body function & structure, drugs and practical patient care," albeit often from the receiving end. We've seen her dressing wounds, performing emergency medical procedures, etc., etc. Given that six years had elapsed between their modest proposal to Rumy and the series' end, that's way more than enough time for Alisin to have achieved Nursedom (no med school required, either, although specialist nursing programs probably are).

Now, to become an OCN or CPON, as Shanna's notes described her (once I reminded Shanna that Alisin was not, in fact, a lobster nurse), Alisin would have to have an RN, which would require a decent amount more work than an LPN (but not so much as to remove it from the realm of possibility). On the other hand, perhaps she is just a regular nurse who happens to work for an oncology clinic (as opposed to an ogenki clinic, of course); given that Shanna apparently thought that Alisin worked with crabs, I don't know if we can trust her to discriminate ad hoc between the finer degrees of Nursedom. :-)

Comment from: Ray Radlein posted at April 29, 2005 4:25 AM

I can't tell which parts were old and which were new half of the time. Like Julia, a character who had appeared *once* AFAIK, previously known only as "Girl Under a Tree Reading Clarke", who was a favorite among some forum posters for reasons that elude meÛthey refer to her being "unlucky in love" but where was that established?

I'm not entirely sure where the "unlucky in love" was established, but Julia certainly had more appearances than just her initial cameo reading Clarke. She was clearly one of the folks on the periphery of the club all along; she was memorably propositioned by Tim at the disastrous party (when Akane first visited Rumy) at Kath's place Û you know, the one that ended with most of the partygoers kidnapped by the FIB?. Fortunately for her, she had already stalked off in a huff before the kidnappings began (of course, they may have let her go anyway, just like they let Meighan walk Shanna home).

Comment from: BassetKing posted at April 29, 2005 4:33 AM

Damnit, Eric.

I wasn't crying until I read this.

I was holding on.

I was Maintaining.

...Damnit.

Comment from: Paul Gadzikowski posted at April 29, 2005 7:25 AM

I seem to recall starting the Fans archive once. Apparently it didn't grab me. Or, is it on a subscription service? Then maybe I only read the free preview. There's also the possibility I said to myself, "I live this the third Saturday of every month already," and/or, "I wrote this twenty years ago when I was that age."

"Also, my experiences have led me to believe that IRL this sort of semi-formal three-way commitment isn't quite as rare as one would expect."

"Three-way commitment"? There's bearing there on the story I'm telling. Maybe I ought to read this.

Comment from: Wednesday posted at April 29, 2005 9:17 AM

The part I never quite clicked on (and I guess I should go through the forum, really): is this a V or a triad? The latter, I think, is much less common than the former. Not to say that you don't get outright triads a bunch. It looks like a very close V from this end, since I don't think Rumy has any interest in Al*, and -- bi or not, and please don't get me started on this -- I don't think Al* would push it.

It does strike me as odd, either way, that it's treated as unusual -- they're North American fen, for God's sake; how did they miss poly for however many years? How did they miss the con panels, if nothing else?

Comment from: Ray Radlein posted at April 29, 2005 9:22 AM

Yeah, I pointed out on the forums that this sort of thing is not exactly unheard of in fandom. Some folks were actually surprised by that.

Comment from: T Campbell posted at April 29, 2005 10:05 AM

Nice work, Eric. A couple of minor glitches-- Jackie never went to StarTec, and Meighan's not so much revolutionizing the world of business as she is swimming with the sharks. Station 13 ultimately collapsed. Still, you're basically right about the ending-- Mary Sue would be jealous, if she weren't Such a Wonderful Person.

Ray's covered the med stuff better than I could.

The cute renamings started to bug me too after the first year, but in the cases of STAR TREK and Harlan Ellison they were absolutely necessary. There's no way I could have pulled off "Teccies" with the real Majel Barrett Roddenberry, but it wouldn't have worked as well with "cute generic sixtysomething actress," either.

Now, Jason just LUUUUVED the cute renamings, so he packed as many as possible into his co-writing credit, "Chord of the Rings."

Comment from: Johnny Assay posted at April 29, 2005 10:06 AM

David Willis did the last chapter with fantastic skill and flexibility, but I deeply missed Waltrip in the last act.

Amen. I first started reading Fans! during the first CRFH! crossover, and one of the things that drew me in was Waltrip's drawing style. When it became evident to me that the final chapter was going to end without Waltrip, my thoughts were, "... Oh. Well, I guess that's OK, too. ::: sigh ::: "

Comment from: Dave Van Domelen posted at April 29, 2005 10:19 AM

Willis also has an ominous tie-in with this over at Shortpacked.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at April 29, 2005 10:32 AM

T -- I made the Star Tec comment because the cover of the Star Tec DVD sort of looked like Jackie. I should have realized who it actually was. ;)

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at April 29, 2005 10:35 AM

Still, you're basically right about the ending-- Mary Sue would be jealous, if she weren't Such a Wonderful Person.

And, like I said in the snark, there's really no other way a strip like Fans could end. If you're going to do a Fen SF story, you need to end it MarySueishly.

Comment from: quiller posted at April 29, 2005 4:24 PM

I was really into Fans for a while, then it had restricted archives, and I'd miss a few episodes, and each new chapter would be such an abrupt transition that it seemed too much like work and I stopped reading.

My ex, actually got me reading it again as she wanted me to save some of the comic images for her when she went off for a while. I read it from there until the end, but it was still awfully confusing at times.

If it comes out in some kind of collected form, I may pick it up as it would probably be less confusing when you could flip back to things. Not sure how big a volume that would be, though, and I suppose the number of people involved over the years could make it a little unwieldy to do.

Comment from: Ray Radlein posted at April 29, 2005 6:51 PM

If it comes out in some kind of collected form, I may pick it up as it would probably be less confusing when you could flip back to things. Not sure how big a volume that would be, though, and I suppose the number of people involved over the years could make it a little unwieldy to do.

Well, that and the fact that once it ceased being a web version of a printed comic, it quickly became well-nigh unprintable for vast stretches of its run. I mean, it's made use of flash animation, sound, octuple-width panels, hugely vertical layouts, animated GIFs, mouseover effects, and embedded hyperlinks at various times in its run. Some of those could be worked around or ignored for a print edition, but some of them really couldn't.

On the other hand, it is being made available on CDs. I bought the first one years ago when it came out, and the remaining ones are on my shortlist of things to pick up whenever I finally get my disability; but since I don't have them yet, I don't know if the various CDs integrate together should you want to install them all to your hard drive.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at April 29, 2005 7:21 PM

Ray -- where are the CDs available?

Comment from: Wednesday posted at April 29, 2005 8:52 PM

Eric - hither: http://www.faans.com/order.html

Comment from: kirabug posted at April 30, 2005 12:02 AM

Wendesday/Ray - thanks for the link. I ran into the same problem as Quiller, a year or so ago, and only got back in at the end when the archives opened up because of the site problems. Now that I've had a taste, of course, I want to reread the whole thing. *sigh* one more thing for the wish list.

Comment from: Ray Radlein posted at April 30, 2005 12:21 AM

Ray's covered the med stuff better than I could.

To which end, I owe a quick apology to Shanna's notes: They clearly do (now) refer to Alisin as "an oncologist's nurse," rather than as an "oncology nurse." The latter, of course, would imply that she was an OCN or CPON, both of which would require her to first be an RN; being "an oncologist's nurse," on the other hand, requires nothing more than being a nurse who works for an oncologist, the requirements of which, as I mentioned, were trivially within her reach given six years.

Comment from: Robotech_Master posted at December 9, 2006 5:59 AM

I realize I'm something of a Johnny-come-lately to this thread, as I just now stayed up late at night reading the entire thing from beginning to end. It's five in the morning now and I should have been in bed hours ago. I only got started because I was curious about Waltrip's art, given that he's renowned in Robotech circles as half of the duo who did the huge-mongous Sentinels comic book series.

On the other hand, perhaps now that it's long over is the best time for me to read it—as a completed work that I could digest all at once, and not have trouble remembering labyrinthine storylines because I had already experienced them all.

I have to admit—that was one hell of a ride, in the way that makes you happy (to have read it) and sad (there won't be more) at the same time. Very, very nicely done.

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