(no subject)
I was thinking about who my first slash pairing was. Other people are like Napoleon/Illya! or Jim/Blair! But I didn't even know those shows existed until college and slash fandom. My first internet fandom was Highlander, but I never saw the MacLeod/Methos. Even when I actually loved Mac (there was a time), I loved Methos so much more. I always have a problem pairing two characters that I like unequally.
So I realized then that my first slash pairing was Methos/Byron. Woohoo, they have one episode together in which Byron *dies*! What a great pairing, no really good choice, younger me. I think this episode is also the origin of my interest in historical Byron. (Hah, Highlander was the reason for all of those papers and poetry.)
When Ma took me to her work, I would surf the net, looking for fun fannish sites about Highlander. And then I started reading fic. Looking back on it now, there were probably a few Mary-Sues in there. But I was like 12 and heeded the over 18 warning whenever I saw it because that explicit stuff scared me. So I think the rating system works, and that there is a 12-year-old-girl audience for Mary-Sues. They are a legitimate genre, just suited to a different age group. Comparing Mary-Sues to adult fics or good slash is like comparing the stories Mr. Rogers tells in the Land of Make-Believe to the movie Labyrinth. Yes, they both use puppets and humans, but that's about all they have in common.
There was one Byron/Methos fic that I printed out on my aunts' computer when I was 14 I guess (looking at the Byron episode's broadcast date). And I don't remember feeling any differently about the Methos/Byron than the Mary-Sues or gen I had been reading. That is to say, it didn't feel like a change in genre, just like a more compelling story.
The story is here.
I know, I know. All very tame and melodramatic. But character development yay. I actually kinda wrote a M/B fic that summer too. There was face-touching? At the bar I think? But that's about it. It was more about revealing another aspect of Methos to a complacent Joe, Mac, and Richie, which - yeah, still appeals. ::is still 14 omg::
And then that fucking boyscout killed my Byron. Maybe that was what pushed me over the edge to dislike, although his killing poor Tommy Sullivan (who is resurrected as the coach of Ray K's baseball team! Go Tommy!) also made me spitting mad.
When Fraser chooses duty and justice over his own desires, it makes me weep with the woobie. When *Mac* goes against his feelings and desires for the sake of his own self-imposed duty to judge and murder anyone he doesn't agree with, it makes me want to punch him in his little hypocritical face. God.
But it was the Scottish that first made me love Mac, and still, whenever I see him being Scottish at all, I just - I love it. I'm such a Celtic whore.
Reading more of worstwitch's stories - wow, I never thought I'd have an appetite for long gen, but apparently I LOVE Methos gen. Probably because I read Methos gen when I was an impressionable youth. Seriously, I had to take a step back from the Methos gen I was reading after rediscovering worstwitch (thank you webarchive!). Maybe it's because I feel that the historical gen gets closer to the "real" Methos than the too-often series-focused slash fics. Apart from the fact that I don't like Duncan, Methos is 5000 years old. He is not all about sex or his relationship with Duncan or the 3 years we see him onscreen. He's so much more than that.
On a different note, I was thinking about the differences in my relationships with SGA and SV. They're both fandoms I read a lot in but don't watch the show. I watched the series premiere of SV when it first aired and was slightly intrigued, but I already knew then that this was one of those shows (like Friends and ER) where I could follow the plot and keep up with what was going on (esp. with such an active fandom) and only watch the show once and a while. SV *is* my type of show - except for the badness. I have caught a few episodes (like the German Methos episode!) and I would watch more (albeit I suspect in constant post-season 2 canon denial) if I didn't have better things to do. It's like watching SV is on my list of things to do, but it's really far down.
With SGA, it's not on the list at all. I gave it a chance and the first 3 eps were wow boring. You could argue that it is my type of show because I loved the Stargate movie, Farscape, Babylon 5, DS9, and pre-Maggie Sliders. But I didn't like SG1 (although I have acquired great affection for Jack and Daniel through fandom) and I don't like SGA. Maybe I should give them another chance - watch some more episodes - but giving shows second chances is on the to-do list way after watching Smallville. (Although Merry's Hello vid and Barkley's Copacabana vid push it up a little every time I watch them.)
Of course I'll watch vids from any fandom, and read most any fandom if it's well-written. I've adored and read voraciously many many SV Clex fics over the years. And I am loving me some SGA fics now, including Auburn (whose fics dragged me into the fandom months ago). I've especially enjoyed the Harlequin AUs recently. God, Harlequin. I'm turning into my mother.
There's really no point to this post. I was just musing how each relationship to a show and each relationship to a fandom is different. And sometimes the relationships to the show and its fandom are completely unrelated.
Like I love the Sentinel, but think the fandom is kinda lame and negative. I adore Methos and Highlander, but most of the slash is just not what I want to read. I don't like SGA but the fandom is cracktastic and wonderful. As for Babylon 5 I worship the show, but there isn't nearly enough fannish activity, and most of the fic is not what I want to read. (Not just slash - I actually want gen in this fandom. At least some of the official books are good! ::clings to Bester trilogy::)
Maybe the most extreme example of this is Voyager. I didn't like the show that much and I didn't really care about any of the characters, so I only watched sporadically in the early seasons (kinda for Janeway/Chakotay and *definitely* for Q!) and then later not at all. I was vaguely interested in Tom and B'Elanna's Moonlighting thing, but I wasn't interested in them apart from that. I don't think Tom Paris is attractive.
Fanon Paris, however, is a different story. I've only read a few Voyager slash fics over the years, but I've come to like fanon Paris, even if he is frequently badly written.
He is OMG SO ANGSTY and had to sell his body in prison and his father abused him and (just like Duo) he has a JESTER'S MASK to hide his pain and |337 piloting skillz to bury it in. He is also SO ANGELICALLY ATTRACTIVE that everyone on Voyager wants to have sex with him and run their fingers through his wavy, halo-like blonde locks and kiss his vulnerable neck.
It's hard for Tom to be this attractive, because he was RAPED in PRISON you know, so now he thinks he should give sex to everyone who wants it or else he'll be stranded on a planet or magically transported back to prison in the Alpha Quadrant or no longer be allowed to continue redeeming himself through piloting and being an officer. Because OMG he betrayed Starfleet and his father, and then he betrayed the Maquis, so deep down, he thinks he deserves to be punished!
And if everyone who desires him knew his SECRET PAIN about being a prison whore, they would be SHOCKED and APPALLED and treat him like a freak, or else try to make him the *Voyager* whore, because he's traitorous Maquis scum anyway. Oh, and he is SO DIRTY and emotionally abused that NO ONE could ever love him - they only want him for piloting if he's lucky and sex if he's not. (Wow except for the lack of the "everyone I love dies because they love me" thing, he really *is* fanon Duo.)
::giggles uncontrollably::
It's like every cliche *ever*, and I read it with a guilty pleasure. Chakotay and Harry bore me to no end in fanon (I kinda sorta like them in canon), but once in a blue moon it's worth putting up with them and their magical trauma-healing cocks for fanon Tom. If the fic isn't written *too* badly.
Ah, h/c rapefic badfic. Good times.
But yeah, my relationships with Voyager fandom and Voyager canon are different and completely separate and independent of each other. (In fact, in order to be angelically attractive, fanon Tom is a wholly different person in my head - he looks totally different from canon Tom.)
In conclusion: Methos/Byron 4 EVAR! ::waves alcohol-soaked flag attached to a cane:: Theirloveissorevisionisthistory!