(no subject)

[graculus]

Somehow, in addition to the panel on 'Fictive Disasters' that I've been press-ganged into co-modding with 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 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...

Comments

[penfold-x.livejournal.com]

riding counter to the new shiny show, pairing, trend..

One would think that, as fans, this shouldn't be terribly difficult for us: fandom itself still, for the most part, requires riding contrary to whatever dominant pop culture tells you you should watch/like/do.

[graculus.livejournal.com]

One would think that, as fans, this shouldn't be terribly difficult for us: fandom itself still, for the most part, requires riding contrary to whatever dominant pop culture tells you you should watch/like/do.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? And even more so where slash fans are concerned because we're already bucking the system, so to speak. Perhaps there's just a human tendency for water to find its own level?

I like what I like because I like it. I can only assume it's nature, not nurture. ;)