The Internet Is Making Me Sad Right Now
I am totally in an emo have-I-read-everything-good-already? mood. So I'm going to blather at y'all for a while before I sulk off to re-read...something. I want to read Secrets, and HP & the Nightmare of Futures Past, and I Am What I Am, and Defender of the Night, and the Resurrection-verse, but I can already reel off whole sections of those from memory, so. I want something epic and ass-kicking and romantic and if there was non-permanent death, that would be ace, really.
So I am - obviously - not a hardcore shipper or anything (with two exceptions), but sometimes I think that just makes it harder when I dislike a pairing. Because I can look at it and be like, "I'd like to read it, I love that author and that is exactly the kind of ridiculous h/c premise I so love, but I cannot. My brain is willing, but the inner fangirl is in active revolt at the idea."
Sometimes I find a pairing genuinely creepy on its own merits (*cough*Harry/Ginny*cough*), but mostly I seem to hit a problem with the way I approach fandom, which is more difficult, because that is unlikely to change. I have to have someone to root for, apparently, because if it is a fandom for me? I have a favorite. I am there for the favorite, and the favorite only. I am usually ambivalent at best about pairings not involving the favorite, because I want the favorite to have all the boys and girls, basically. It's not a hard and fast rule - I am interested in basically all of the (main) BtVS characters, and I have a hierarchy of favorites in bandom (one for each band, but Brendon Urie trumps everybody) - but it's how I roll 90% of the time.
Like, Gerard is my favorite; my most-read Gerard pairing is with Frank. Therefore, in my head, Frank is with Gerard or Jamia or nobody; I have negative interest in anything else. Gerard can be with anybody, but my inner fangirl has put a little sign on Frank that says "reserved for Gerard and/or Jamia, since I am not quite crazy enough to ignore the awesome RL lady of his choice". The same thing with Pete: Patrick or Ashlee or nobody. Which means I don't get to read much Mikey fic, which is sad and actually what started this; I only got to read half of Discipline and Punish and that is an awesome series and looks really interesting and the Bob/Gerard was great and I totally ship it and I still cannot manage the Mikey/Frank half. Is very sad.
I am a little bitter about the Panic split because I'll read Brendon/Spencer, but what I really shipped (fictionally! I am not a tinhat!) was GSF and somehow, I don't think there'll be much more of that.
Early Hannah Howell novels feel a lot like fanfiction in places. Or internet original fiction, I suppose. There's just a vibe there, like she might secretly have written massive h/c epics under another name. Plus, her awesome hand-waving of things like women wearing underwear and men who think rape is wrong and people not trying to set psychics on fire; it's very "I know and acknowledge this isn't factually correct, but it's how I want to play it, just go with me". Although you know who should be a fangirl but almost certainly isn't? Bertrice Small. She totally loves worldbuilding and using actual historical figures (Jasmine totes has a love affair - with baby! - with actual-doomed Prince Hal) and h/c and slavefic (every other story ends up in a harem in Algiers) and she could really benefit from a good beta.
I totally want slash for RocknRolla; there is an actualfax gay hoodlum in actualfax love with his best friend/gangleader. There is...no, I don't want to spoil it, it was too hilarious. Suffice to say, if it doesn't show up at Yuletide, I will be very sad.
Seriously. Nothing to read. Send recs.
So I am - obviously - not a hardcore shipper or anything (with two exceptions), but sometimes I think that just makes it harder when I dislike a pairing. Because I can look at it and be like, "I'd like to read it, I love that author and that is exactly the kind of ridiculous h/c premise I so love, but I cannot. My brain is willing, but the inner fangirl is in active revolt at the idea."
Sometimes I find a pairing genuinely creepy on its own merits (*cough*Harry/Ginny*cough*), but mostly I seem to hit a problem with the way I approach fandom, which is more difficult, because that is unlikely to change. I have to have someone to root for, apparently, because if it is a fandom for me? I have a favorite. I am there for the favorite, and the favorite only. I am usually ambivalent at best about pairings not involving the favorite, because I want the favorite to have all the boys and girls, basically. It's not a hard and fast rule - I am interested in basically all of the (main) BtVS characters, and I have a hierarchy of favorites in bandom (one for each band, but Brendon Urie trumps everybody) - but it's how I roll 90% of the time.
Like, Gerard is my favorite; my most-read Gerard pairing is with Frank. Therefore, in my head, Frank is with Gerard or Jamia or nobody; I have negative interest in anything else. Gerard can be with anybody, but my inner fangirl has put a little sign on Frank that says "reserved for Gerard and/or Jamia, since I am not quite crazy enough to ignore the awesome RL lady of his choice". The same thing with Pete: Patrick or Ashlee or nobody. Which means I don't get to read much Mikey fic, which is sad and actually what started this; I only got to read half of Discipline and Punish and that is an awesome series and looks really interesting and the Bob/Gerard was great and I totally ship it and I still cannot manage the Mikey/Frank half. Is very sad.
I am a little bitter about the Panic split because I'll read Brendon/Spencer, but what I really shipped (fictionally! I am not a tinhat!) was GSF and somehow, I don't think there'll be much more of that.
Early Hannah Howell novels feel a lot like fanfiction in places. Or internet original fiction, I suppose. There's just a vibe there, like she might secretly have written massive h/c epics under another name. Plus, her awesome hand-waving of things like women wearing underwear and men who think rape is wrong and people not trying to set psychics on fire; it's very "I know and acknowledge this isn't factually correct, but it's how I want to play it, just go with me". Although you know who should be a fangirl but almost certainly isn't? Bertrice Small. She totally loves worldbuilding and using actual historical figures (Jasmine totes has a love affair - with baby! - with actual-doomed Prince Hal) and h/c and slavefic (every other story ends up in a harem in Algiers) and she could really benefit from a good beta.
I totally want slash for RocknRolla; there is an actualfax gay hoodlum in actualfax love with his best friend/gangleader. There is...no, I don't want to spoil it, it was too hilarious. Suffice to say, if it doesn't show up at Yuletide, I will be very sad.
Seriously. Nothing to read. Send recs.