This is a really weird wank, guys

[petronia]

1) Am I the only one who thought of the fandom usage of "Canadian shack" as kind of like "Viennese coffee"? Like, its origins may have had something to do with Vienna, but everyone knows it's just a coffee with whipped cream on top. And no one expects that every coffee you get in Vienna will automatically come with whipped cream.

2) For the record:

2a) I am from Montreal, where every other middle-class family owns a cottage (in the woods, big enough to hold a family, usually has a deck and somewhere to put a rowboat). A cabin is more like a structure for forestry personnel to take shelter and keep supplies in. Both are conceivably empty and unheated in the winter, or only heated by having to make an actual fire in an actual stove - some people only go up in the summer, so it's not an issue. "Shack" makes me think of a dilapidated cabin, possibly with a tin roof; or "sugar shack", which is a quasi-verb referring to our maple-related food festival that takes place in March-April. Like Oktoberfest, but instead of beer, there's maple syrup on everything.

2b) Paul Gross is a Canadian dude, and Due South was a Canadian show that played constantly in Canada which Canadians fucking LOVED. It was not meant to bamboozle Americans. The jokes are cheesy in-jokes. If you are Canadian and did not know this, you are too young or have been living under a rock.

3) I do not know nearly enough about housing problems up north or aboriginal issues in general, though I know they are bad. Canada fails harder on this issue than pretty much anything else, with the possible exception of the Oil Sands. It would never have occurred to me to associate any of this with Canadian shack fanfics; that's a bit like saying you can't write a story about someone getting shipwrecked on an island and running out of food, because there are real famines happening somewhere in the world.

4) When fandom writes a Canadian shack story and it turns out to actually take place in Canada, I find it hilarious awesome and call all my friends on the telephone. (No not really.)

Comments

[l_elfie]

...i think the last time i thought about "canadian shacks" was when it was in the context of...the canadian shack challenge, where literally every story - regardless of fandom - was set in a shack in canada. does it mean something else now?

[petronia]

For some ppl apparently yes, they all had to be set in Canada. I assumed it was a generic. XD;

[l_elfie]

also, this is one of the more baffling and lulzy wanks i've heard about in a while. XD and thank you for the education on canadian outdoorsy buildings, haha.

[flamebyrd]

This entire wank reads to me like somebody - whether me or someone else - is lacking context. I could never get into "Canadian shack" as a trope so I haven't read the stories, which does raise the possibility of them being completely different to how I always assumed based on the few I've read...

Which is to say, I agree with these points and am a little bemused.

[oneill]

First: haha, what.

Second: I'm a little confused by point 4. Do you mean it in the sense of, "Oh, so you honestly think that resembles Canada in any way," or do these things get set in other places on purpose?

[petronia]

Both. XD I mean, it turns out that actually quite a lot of ppl thought Canadian shack stories had to take place in Canada (and thus much of the hilarity comes from the challenge of getting your fandom/characters there plausibly), but as far as I was concerned it became a generic term for what anime fandom calls "blanketfic" ages ago.

[petronia]

I honestly mean: it is funny to me in the same way as it would be funny to anyone if eg. an episode of a TV show they were following turned out to be set in their home town for no reason apart coincidence. XD

[shiraume]

I saw a mention of that a day or two ago on my DW circle and was very confused (Canadian shack? Huh? What's that and why are there so many of these fanfics??).

I...um, I still don't get it. Why a Canadian shack (whatever that is, um) and what's up with all these fanfics? o.o

[petronia]

In Due South, Benton Fraser owned a cabin up north, and people wrote so much blanketfic starring that cabin it became its own sub-genre. XD;

[karalee]

I have zero idea what is going on, and even less idea what a "Canadian shack" is. (If you asked me I would have said a shack with a Canadian flag on it.) XD

[petronia]

I think you guys are all too young to remember Due South fandom in its heyday. :P