Smooshed and creative pairing names
I'll be up front here. I really loathe smooshed pairings. I loathe any kind of shortening or changing. I'm even nervous at using the character's first names. Some names aren't going to garner too much confusion. How many fandoms have a Rodney or a Radek? But others are fairly commonplace. BSG has a Laura, too. How many Johns or Jacks or even Sams can we name? Does Sam/John mean Samantha Carter & John Sheppard or a Wincest combination? How hard is it to type out your pairings names? It's hard enough to keep track of all the normal permutations for LJ userinfo, but you want me to remember all the nicknames, too?
Imagine I'm a brand new person to your fandom. I've gone out and bought the shiny new dvds or I've gobbled up all the episodes my friends can toss at me. I fall in love with a particular pairing. Surely there's fic or something for them, right? So I plug it into the LJ interests. Every combination of their name I can think of. And nothing pops up. Yet people claim there's fic for this pairing. So where is it? I might stumble upon it later under some nickname or cutesy title or smoosh. How was I supposed to find it?
I admit my opinion has cooled after watching newcomer after newcomer waltz through john_elizabeth asking "What's Sparky?" I do not want to go through that migraine-waiting-to-happen on my comm. I've pleaded for people to continue including the real pairing name somewhere for cataloguing purposes. (Why yes, I work in libraries, how did you know?)
I don't have a problem with fannish creativity. It's one of the things that makes fandom uniquely fandom. I just sometimes think in its creativity, fandom forgets when to be practical too.
Imagine I'm a brand new person to your fandom. I've gone out and bought the shiny new dvds or I've gobbled up all the episodes my friends can toss at me. I fall in love with a particular pairing. Surely there's fic or something for them, right? So I plug it into the LJ interests. Every combination of their name I can think of. And nothing pops up. Yet people claim there's fic for this pairing. So where is it? I might stumble upon it later under some nickname or cutesy title or smoosh. How was I supposed to find it?
I admit my opinion has cooled after watching newcomer after newcomer waltz through john_elizabeth asking "What's Sparky?" I do not want to go through that migraine-waiting-to-happen on my comm. I've pleaded for people to continue including the real pairing name somewhere for cataloguing purposes. (Why yes, I work in libraries, how did you know?)
I don't have a problem with fannish creativity. It's one of the things that makes fandom uniquely fandom. I just sometimes think in its creativity, fandom forgets when to be practical too.