Infinite Stories
The fandom part of my brain has been filled up with Will of the Empress and current-season Doctor Who: both things I love, which plenty of other people criticize pretty harshly (and in the case of DW, at least, some of it is out and out hate). And it sometimes makes me wonder what I'm missing, what I'm not seeing that everybody else is seeing and up in arms over.
I can't answer that question, but I'm also not sure I need to. Here's the key thing, from my point of view:
No story is all things to all people. No story can be all things to all people. No story should be all things to all people. No story should try to be all things to all people.
That cuts both ways, of course. For me, that means forgiving a lot of things that some people find problematic in the stories I love -- River Song is a Mary Sue, and Canton Everett Delaware's boyfriend is a black man who's a plot point instead of a character, and Daja is in danger of being forgotten, and I don't care because there's another story out there where the shoe is on the other foot, and I probably love that one, too.
But... the stories I love, though they're not all things to me, are NOT the stories everyone loves.
I keep reminding myself, that's okay. There are an infinite number of stories, and no one will love them all, and none of them will be loved by everyone.
I can't answer that question, but I'm also not sure I need to. Here's the key thing, from my point of view:
No story is all things to all people. No story can be all things to all people. No story should be all things to all people. No story should try to be all things to all people.
That cuts both ways, of course. For me, that means forgiving a lot of things that some people find problematic in the stories I love -- River Song is a Mary Sue, and Canton Everett Delaware's boyfriend is a black man who's a plot point instead of a character, and Daja is in danger of being forgotten, and I don't care because there's another story out there where the shoe is on the other foot, and I probably love that one, too.
But... the stories I love, though they're not all things to me, are NOT the stories everyone loves.
I keep reminding myself, that's okay. There are an infinite number of stories, and no one will love them all, and none of them will be loved by everyone.