I'm feeling all fannishly giddy
And suddenly understanding - just a tiny bit - what the TRs must have felt during all of LFN. In the, what it feels like to root for not the main couple sense. Not that I'm opposed to the main H50 couple (fannishly speaking - I'm honestly not sure who the show runners think the 'main couple' is? Doris and Mick? They appear to be the only two to
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I always found places like Michael's Retreat extremely disconcerting, so never hung out there, while the show was on air, or after. And it does seem like the saner fen who lasted, or at least came on over to Livejournal, tended to have a TR focus. Werid. Interesting.
The remianing Eureka fic-fandom is pretty split, ff.net is strongly het and Jo/Zane focused, though there is a little bit of everything over there. But in terms of active readers, those all seem to be on AO3, which is very strongly slash and focused on the lead dude - the 'new to town' Sheriff Jack Carter and the buff sr. scientist, Dr. Nathan Stark. I will say that, by comparison, the slash fic writers are a bit saner? (for a definition of sane that requires that every fic begin with bringing Stark back from the dead... he died half way throug the run! lol!) The single most active - prolific even - remaining het shipper, Jo/Zane writer on ff.net is slowly going off the rails and her fic is getting stranger and more gothic by the week. I keep promising myself I'll quit reading it, but the train wreck has proven almost irresistible.
There is a study in fanfic somewhere about that pattern, because I remember it in LFN HR fic too.
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But I do think there's something in the fruitcake explanation; the discourse of our group was obviously vastly different than, say, Michael's Retreat. But then, the FF Message Board was similar in tone to our later LJ discussions, and Jaybee was still pretty much sailing the good ship TR on her own, from what I saw. So it seems like it does have a lot to do with the fannish platform itself. It's probably not a coincidence that sites like ff.net or the Voy forums tend to be more hospitable to het, mainstream pairings, while the slicker, more discussion-based spaces for transformative works like LJ or A03 are friendlier to slash and non-canonical/less popular pairings.
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My sense on AO3 in particular is that the group who pulled it together were already super slash and non-canonical/less popular pairings friendly, and that has continued to shape it even now.
And ff.net went through that period when virtually all erotica was removed, (It seems to be back, btw! lol!) which definitely shaped it's development as well.
Patterns w/in fandoms are also interesting though. The het pairing that got me writing again is canon, but not the central canon het-pairing, though to be fair it got more central to canon as time went on. It was also not even on the fic/fannish radar, canon or not, until the dude-half showed up midway through season 2, and he didn't become a regular until S4. So the overwhelming majority of the early fic - that can still be found by my intrepid searching anyway - is for the still AO3-dominate slash pairing. Even on ff.net. But the fandom only took off on ff.net (over 1000 stories now) after the secondary canon het pairing of Zane/Jo (my latest OTP) took on more canon focus in S4/S5.
Why not the canon central het pairing? Which was set up appox. ten minutes into the first episode? Honestly? They're boring to write about. Virtually all of their HEA hurdles are external, and the possibly interesting internal conflicts are challenging because 1) they don't really get together until pretty late on in the run, and 2) the internal dynamics are delightfully gender-switched. She's brilliant and highly educated and a scientist - he is none of those things. She's also hyper femme to his conventional cop-macho, and already a mother to balance him already being a father. But in general, they are super respectful of each other, mature, loving, responsible, hyper comptetant, etc. etc. etc. - so of course one roots for them, but never really doubts them. They are - hugely overdetermined.
Which made the slash pairing of the cop and her brilliant-obnoxious-beautiful once and future husband the far more interesting story to tell.
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Yes, that is definitely my sense as well--it's a more tech-savvy group with an at times explicitly academic approach to fandom; A03 is under the umbrella of the Organization for Transformative Works, yes? I don't mean to privilege certain ways of engaging with fandom over others, but it makes sense that platforms which skew significantly younger (ff.net) or older (LFN fandom in its heyday, from that stories you've told me!), or tend to attract non-fandom veterans and the non-tech-savvy (er...Michael's Retreat) have different shipping preferences as a result of a divergent fannish culture.
so of course one roots for them, but never really doubts them. They are - hugely overdetermined.
You know, this is funny, because that's exactly how I felt about Michael/Nikita! I didn't mind them, really, although I had issues at times with both M an N as individual characters which we've hashed out a fair amount--but perhaps I never really shipped them because I felt that same sense of, well, overdetermination. (I'm sure you would disagree! And I would always admit to being in the minority in that respect.) By contrast, Paul/Madeline had that feel of the second het couple that you describe--it was a pairing that was a bit of a slow burn compared with the overwhelmingly HR narrative focus, with a similarly odd timeline (seasons 2/3 intensely shippy, seasons 1 and 4 not...really, or at least only in a more oblique sense).
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Just fr'instance - I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE to the nth degree - John Chrigton/Aeryn Sun from Farscape. They may be my true all time OTP. I saw the first two seasons in more or less real time, but babies and RL slowed me down, and I eventually, only years later, watched the whole series on DVD straight through. And OMG - SO over determined. So tortured. So pretty. And the series writers more than satisfied me. Never felt the need to read much fic, and never the urge to write any at all. I had a similar reaction to Buffy - I only saw the whole series all at once, years after it - and Angel - finished airing. So while I'm not opposed to Buffy/Angel, their story arc played out naturally for me, and I never felt any interest in reading or writing fic for them. Buffy/Spike was more interesting, and had a much less satisfying ending story wise .... so the fic I have read has tended to be for them. But still never had any interest in writing any....
I'm sure it makes a difference for me, as a fan, that in Eureka, I watched the whole five seasons - spread out over six years in real time (it got caught up in the writers strike back in 2008), in about four weeks. So stuff that left fans hanging, speculating over years, played straight through for me. Same I bet for those who saw LFN straight through. Paul and Madeline become much more interesting because it seems they *could* be together, if they both ever wanted it at the same time, but they don't - which is an intriguing fanfic problem. And their pre-series history then becomes super interesting - how did they get to the point where they were when we met them? How does that history then make it so hard for them to have what they both seem to want, but not quite together?
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Are we converting you? :) Because that's a perfect summary of what makes them so delightful! But yes, definitely--we've talked a fair amount about what exactly it is that makes LFN so irresistibly compelling to fic writers, and what I loved about Paul/Madeline was how very undetermined it was. I tend to be turned off by pairings that are too obviously shipped by the writers and telegraphed from the pilot episode, and Michael/Nikita unfortunately fell into that box for me--and as the show progressed, the emphasis on creating mission scenarios and plots which advanced the agenda of the central pairing was rather off-putting when experienced in marathon-style DVD viewing.
It wasn't as if I really minded Michael/Nikita on my screen (although I would have preferred more of my ship/time with the ensemble), but I had that similar sense you describe with John/Aeryn of feeling that since the writers obviously had the shipping well in hand, there was hardly any need to go out and write fic! Of course, Paul/Madeline may have gone too far in the opposite direction, as at times the writers didn't seem interested in them at all. But as we've discussed, the endless retconning and fanwanking that required on our parts probably stimulated much of our fannish interest.
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In the abstract, maybe? Heh!
In the actual show??? Not so much. Paul hits all the wrong buttons for me. ;-)
And - when it comes to M/F shippiness - I like my dudes to pine, baby. Yearn for their ladies. Risk everything. Wear their hearts on their sleeves. Hurl themselves into danger. Beg.
Paul - Paul resolutely does none of this. At least. Not in show. Not for Madeline (well, that one time...?). If he had, I probably would have liked him better! I always did like him best when he was taking big risks....
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Yearn for their ladies. Risk everything. Wear their hearts on their sleeves. Hurl themselves into danger. Beg.
all the time with Paul! To be fair, most of his conventionally romantic behavior is problematized by the revelations of TET, but I take them as genuine, with the deception beginning around s3 (still, YMMV). In any case, I actually think Paul consistently yearned, begged, and wore his heart on his sleeve when it came to Madeline--his feelings for her were never really in doubt, in contrast with her notorious rectitude. He also, I think, genuinely seemed to want a much more conventional, normative relationship with her than they had, which was an interesting gender reversal. I admit that I was always a bit weirded out by the marriage theories and certainly never subscribed to them myself, but I did pick up on that sort of sublimated desire for domesticity and normality on his part--he certainly treated her like his wife at times (often in very unattractive ways, admittedly) and I think he did really want that sort of commitment and stability from her, which also might account for his rather violent reactions to sexual infidelity on her part.
He's also shown several times to take rather extraordinary risks on her behalf (i.e. Mandatory Refusal, exposing himself to a deadly virus, protecting her from inter-agency politics) although admittedly there are moments of shocking disregard for her welfare as well. But I think it speaks volumes that the vast majority of those bizarre, OOC moments were in s4--his characterization in seasons 1-3 seemed to consistently underline his willingness to undertake significant risks to protect her, and also a more understated but still apparent concern for her personal safety (not wanting her to go to Kessler in Gambit, his obvious horror at her being attacked by the prisoner in I Remember Paris).
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But, somehow, for me, Paul/Madeline is like.... tiramisu. I like all of the ingredients separately, I like them in pairs, but I don't care for the whole at all. Absolutely no idea why.
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Not in the 'character on a page' sense, but in the MLKjr sense, to be judged not on the color of our skin but the content of our characters, sense. I do actively dislike him and the choices he makes as a leader of section 1, however much I have tried to focus on his other, admirable qualities.
Trying to parse out the rest has always been a frustrating and ultimately futile exercise. :-/
And it does effect which 'ships ping for me, and which don't. The m/m ship that dominates the Eureka fic at AO3 contains one dude I like very much, the hero, Jack, and one dude - Nathan - who, honestly, could have aged up to be Paul. Though he is much funnier, and willing to laugh at himself....so there is that. ;-)
But - anyway - I like Nathan so much less than I like Jack's onscreen lady love, whom I adore, that I find all the fic featuring Jack/Nathan as a pair exceedingly dreary.
And (whispers down here where maybe the lovely Ms.Artisan won't see it - I think she isn't reading the thread anymore!) I am slowly coming to dislike one half of the central m/m ship in Hawaii 5-0. I *did* like him, them very much. The hoo-yaa was STRONG for me during hte first season and for the first time evah, baby, I *felt* the slash. All tingly and shit. My goggles were strapped on tight! LOL!
But...... time and onscreen developments? I'm increasingly coming to percieve one half of the pair as a gigantic asshole. Like, I'm not sure I'd be sorry if there was onscreen death, no longer like. I no longer want the one I still like to be with him at all, not the man he is now, on screen.
Makes me wonder, if, I had not watched in real time, but only later and all at once with a complete run, I ever would have been drawn to see/enjoy the slash pairing at all.
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Nell and I were talking above also about timing and the evolution of shipping preferences in fandom; given the relative slow burn of a pairing like Paul/Madeline (which was not even canonical until season two, really), I wonder if the pacing of the relationship may have seemed somehow more appealing when viewed in a relatively short expanse of time on DVD as opposed to stretched out in mainly small interactions/subplots over the course of several years? Of course, watching the show live certainly didn't stop you from becoming a rabid shipper, so I doubt it's a universal principle. But still, it could account for the sudden proliferation of TRs in the post-DVD release era.
As for where the new HRs went--I just think they weren't involved in the fandom, tbh! I mean, there wasn't a fandom on LJ, really, except what we were doing, and I was/am obsessed enough that I think I probably would have come across instances of fannish activity on other platforms. So I think the luck of putting together a solid group of committed TRs (and ahem, a few people of other shipping allegiances, who we also love dearly! <3) allowed us to orient the fandom, such as it was, in that direction. I'm sure plenty of new viewers were enthralled by Michael/Nikita and may even have posted a review or two about it on their personal blog, but in absence of an active HR community, I'm not sure where they had to go, honestly.
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I wonder if the pacing of the relationship may have seemed somehow more appealing when viewed in a relatively short expanse of time on DVD as opposed to stretched out in mainly small interactions/subplots over the course of several years?
I'm sure that makes a difference, especially for the non-central, but canon, pairings. Not completely - the TRs were always there, fer'instance!, and in my case - the Adam/Kono ship from H50 that triggered this post is part of an ongoing, on air series with no clear end in sight. But - still - emphasis differs when you can see big sections of hte story all at once vs. weekly or less.
Out of curiosity this morning I went back and looked at the earliest Eureka fic on ff.net. It was a truly TINY fandom during the first two/three years of the run, and with no clear fandom fav pairing, interestingly enough. Even the still running slash pair didn't get all that much love at first. If anything, it was a femme-slash pair that new writers kept going back to. The other thing? Most of the early fic is utter crap. The better writers didn't show up until later.... I have no current theory as to why!
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Ah, yes, you're right! I admit that is one fannish activity I would not have much interest in, so I probably missed many of the HR vids--although interestingly, I think there were a fair amount of TR vids at the time as well, perhaps even an equal amount?
A03 is also almost entirely dominated by TR, which is fascinating!
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