graculus: (Snape)
[personal profile] graculus
Somehow, in addition to the panel on 'Fictive Disasters' that I've been press-ganged into co-modding with [livejournal.com profile] cycnus39 at the upcoming Connotations slash convention the weekend after next, I seem to have also volunteered myself for another one.

So any comments on the subject at hand ('In a league of their own: riding counter to the new shiny show, pairing, trend...') would be very much appreciated as at the moment my thoughts are somewhat limited... particularly any comments from [livejournal.com profile] atdelphi, fellow queen of the underdog pairing! :P

I've never been someone who likes very much being told what to think - heaven knows this has got me into trouble more than once - so the chances of me jumping happily onto the latest shiny fannish bandwagon are close to zero. However, I can usually summon up a reason why I haven't that doesn't just boil down to 'awkward obstreperous cowbag'. Usually.

Let's take Firefly as a prime example. There are people on my lj friendslist who love the show in question, who would crawl over broken glass to get a ticket for the new movie and think it's the best thing since sliced bread. Me, I wasn't all that enamoured of sliced bread either! :P The more I'm told something is wonderful, the less I believe it, I think. I have to see it for myself, I can't follow and be swept along in the fannish wake of something. Now sometimes this means I might miss out, sometimes it means I might get into something relatively late in the day, but more often than not it just means I actually get to act like a human being and not a sheep. ;)

I'm a great believer in IDIC and I just don't see it being exercised in fandom as much as it ought to be. Fandom is too full of OTP-ness, where variety of any kind is frowned upon because everyone should conform - the pairing is the pairing is the fandom. Pffft. Now there are a couple of shows I write for (UNCLE and WWW, in case people were wondering) where I just can't see any other pairing than the one I write but that doesn't mean if people want to write other pairings they shouldn't. It just means I'd like them well-labelled so I don't stumble across them by accident, thankee kindly. But people don't, on the whole, do they?

Makes me wonder what drives people to write particular pairings - sometimes it's the pretty, sometimes it's the obvious. I can't imagine writing a canon-sanctioned pairing (unless you count the aforementioned UNCLE and WWW and then it depends on who you're talking to...) and I'm sure I'm not alone in this, so why aren't there more people who don't write the fandom-sanctioned OTP? Particularly when (as with SG, for example) the show seems determined to mess with your pairing of choice?

I've always had a tendency to fall for a particular character in a show and then I can quite happily write about them with someone else (if that person just has chemistry with them) without needing fannish permission to do so. In fact, even in the face of outright embargo (yes, Mag7 fandom awards people, I'm looking at you!) I can't help wanting to write about the pairings nobody else seems interested in, as well as the somewhat more accepted ones. As long as Ezra is in there, it's mostly all good. I guess I must just be wired up that way...

Date: 2005-09-19 01:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] blktauna.livejournal.com
Seeeeeeee I so want to come to Connotations!!!!!

damn

Well as a proponet of the non-popular... Sadly I don't do it on purpose. It just is. I like who I like and feel a connection to who I feel the connection to. It just isn't generally who everyone else likes. And unlike many, I can't just write anything about anyone. I must see them... I have to hear their words to one another. The milieu of the show must appeal.

Of course, I'm a media fan, not a fic fan. I don't travel from fandom to fandom. I love my boys and stick with them.

and honestly. I don't give a shit what other peole are doing. They can have fun their way, but I'm having my fun, my way.

Date: 2005-09-19 03:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] graculus.livejournal.com
I think the difference is whether people are a fan of fandom or a fan of a particular show. There are shows that have no interest for me and characters I could care less about - so why should I want to read about them, regardless of who's writing in that fandom now?

Likewise, I can't predict what will take my fancy and I can like a show without getting into the fandom. There are a number of shows currently airing that I watch but none of them have dragged me into their respective fandoms and other fandoms I'm reading in I have no interest in writing for. Regardless of how pretty some of the protagonists might be... My problem (well, one of them...) is that I take a lot of convincing and if people whose judgement and taste in fic I trust can't manage to lead me astray, who can? ;)

The characters have to 'click' for me, or else I have no interest in them, maybe not even in what they're getting up to onscreen and probably not beyond that. I'm not sure how much of it is a mix between contrary and deliberate choice.

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