Fanfiction and expectations
As I get older, I find I am becoming more intractable in my fanfiction likes and dislikes, and especially in my liking of pairings. Sadly, I can't simply read 6 different fics where the main character pairs up with 6 different people like back in the days of Ranma 1/2.
This can sometimes be a problem with mediums where I like more than one ship. Take Buffy, for example. I love the Buffy/Faith ship, and used to read those fics all the time. But I cannot and will not read anything with Kennedy and Willow together. And 90% of the new B/F fics coming out are post-Chosen. I don't blame the writers, as post-series is a great place to make B/F actually work. But I can't get past the Kennedy in the fics enough to read it. Which means I'm reading far less B/F.
I was reminded of this recently with the end of Harry Potter. I find I am somewhat unusual in that my dislike of Harry/Ginny does not lead to a dislike of all things Weasley. In fact, I like Ron/Hermione. It's not huge, but I like how they work together and how they ended up. I've always quite liked that David and Maddie-esque relationship.
And I have a feeling that if I keep reading my preferred pairing (Harry/Luna), I'll be finding more and more Weasley-bashing. It's somewhat a consequence of Book 7, which once again shows the Weasleys as Harry's ideal family and what he most strives for, something that irritates a lot of fans. And indeed, I think it's a mistake for Harry to try and emulate their family. But I still like them. And I have a feeling I'll be seeing more anti-Weasley fics in the future, which makes me wonder if I can read that sort of thing.
Fanfiction, especially for Harry Potter but also in general, is written by young people. Teens, twenties, that sort of thing. And many of them turn to it because something in the source material upsets them and they want to see it changed. At its worst, that leads to things like what happened with Ranma fanfiction in the late 90s, or Love Hina fanfiction a couple of years ago, where the lead 'angry' girl is taught to know her place and beg forgiveness from the now menacing, masculine male lead. (Love Hina in particular has this, and always has Naru's friends turn against her and shun her, as if suddenly realizing her cartoon violence is HORRIBLE AND WRONG, as opposed to laughing like they do in the series.)
HP has a bit of this, but mostly it's less revenge-oriented fics than making the characters they dislike dislikeable. Don't like Ron? Hey, why not paint him as a homophobe and sexist twat? Don't care for the twins? Excellent, have them laugh as their pranks kill people. If you write them horribly enough, everyone will agree with you and you can all live happily ever after with the RIGHT characters.
I have a feeling if I looked through my backlog of LJ entries, I've ranted about this before. But Deathly Hallows has led to a lot of bashing (though not nearly as much as the record set by Half-Blood Prince), and it struck me once more while reading Nightbreak's entry about H/G/L on Flaming Nargles. (I'm one of the few on that comm, I suspect, who prefers Luna to Ginny in general).
This can sometimes be a problem with mediums where I like more than one ship. Take Buffy, for example. I love the Buffy/Faith ship, and used to read those fics all the time. But I cannot and will not read anything with Kennedy and Willow together. And 90% of the new B/F fics coming out are post-Chosen. I don't blame the writers, as post-series is a great place to make B/F actually work. But I can't get past the Kennedy in the fics enough to read it. Which means I'm reading far less B/F.
I was reminded of this recently with the end of Harry Potter. I find I am somewhat unusual in that my dislike of Harry/Ginny does not lead to a dislike of all things Weasley. In fact, I like Ron/Hermione. It's not huge, but I like how they work together and how they ended up. I've always quite liked that David and Maddie-esque relationship.
And I have a feeling that if I keep reading my preferred pairing (Harry/Luna), I'll be finding more and more Weasley-bashing. It's somewhat a consequence of Book 7, which once again shows the Weasleys as Harry's ideal family and what he most strives for, something that irritates a lot of fans. And indeed, I think it's a mistake for Harry to try and emulate their family. But I still like them. And I have a feeling I'll be seeing more anti-Weasley fics in the future, which makes me wonder if I can read that sort of thing.
Fanfiction, especially for Harry Potter but also in general, is written by young people. Teens, twenties, that sort of thing. And many of them turn to it because something in the source material upsets them and they want to see it changed. At its worst, that leads to things like what happened with Ranma fanfiction in the late 90s, or Love Hina fanfiction a couple of years ago, where the lead 'angry' girl is taught to know her place and beg forgiveness from the now menacing, masculine male lead. (Love Hina in particular has this, and always has Naru's friends turn against her and shun her, as if suddenly realizing her cartoon violence is HORRIBLE AND WRONG, as opposed to laughing like they do in the series.)
HP has a bit of this, but mostly it's less revenge-oriented fics than making the characters they dislike dislikeable. Don't like Ron? Hey, why not paint him as a homophobe and sexist twat? Don't care for the twins? Excellent, have them laugh as their pranks kill people. If you write them horribly enough, everyone will agree with you and you can all live happily ever after with the RIGHT characters.
I have a feeling if I looked through my backlog of LJ entries, I've ranted about this before. But Deathly Hallows has led to a lot of bashing (though not nearly as much as the record set by Half-Blood Prince), and it struck me once more while reading Nightbreak's entry about H/G/L on Flaming Nargles. (I'm one of the few on that comm, I suspect, who prefers Luna to Ginny in general).