the unpopular:
Ten Unpopular Fannish Opinions. !
1. Spoilers. Are. Bad. I mean, okay, if you're lingering in the Sherlock Holmes fandom, it's probably smart to know that "The Final Problem" is not the end, but since it falls halfway through your book and the very next section is called The Return of Sherlock Holmes, but honestly. Spoilers. SUCK. We have not all seen OMG everything ever aired. We have not all seen Buffy S7. Or Angel S4-5. *cough*. Spoiler warnings, especially for big, honking, serious spoilers like "OMG at the end of the last episode they all die!" just... cut them, label them, and let me blissfully peruse my flist without screaming at it. This goes double triple quadruple for stuff that hasn't yet aired. Please. Honestly. CUT TAG LIKE WHOA.
PS: Moods can also be spoilerish. Titles can also be spoilerish. Sometimes, spoiler warnings can be spoilerish. *cough* Heroes *cough* Your cut tags are a courtesy to the spoiler virgin, okay? So try to be courteous about it.
2. RPS is a matter of taste. I love some nice, snuggly DM/BB fic on alternate Tuesdays, something PG-13 or lighter. Monaboyd canon is also kinda cute. I see no problem with squeeing over teh_dombilleh, or JR Bourne and Colin Cunningham kissing like whoa, or that really incredibly cute picture of Joss and Alexis Denisof getting snuggly. So long, of course, as you remember IT'Z ALL PASTEDE ON YAY. Sanity is definitely a plus when it comes to RPF and RPS, especially the part where it's FICTION. Hopefully we remember this whenever we're writing fic, but it's like double triple quintuple important when you're writing about real people.
There's like, way historical precedent for RPF. Everyone's seen the satirical (and hilarious) Bush/Kerry that made it into The New Yorker, right? And it wasn't even smacked with a OMG fiction don't' sue! label. Possibly because your average New Yorker reader is ten trillion times more intelligent than your average fangirl (no offense. I'm more of a fangirl than a New Yorker reader, myself. But I'm just saying.)
Invading the privacy of public figures means stalking them, or perhaps even speculating as to who they're actually fucking. Imagining prettiness in our head where they're fucking each other isn't invading anyone's privacy except our own. If our "canon" is things the celebs have made public: from interviews or commentaries or DVD extras or public events to which they have allowed the press, then we aren't invading their privacy. Not if we remember that our own crack speculation is entirely pastede on yay!
That said, RPS isn't everyone's cuppa, and I get that. I find more of it boring. I find NC-17 RPS distasteful. I also find wingfic weird beyond all reason, but that didn't stop me from writing some. But yeah. Don't like? Don't read. You probably won't find any here. Unless I finish writing the stupid fucking Joss RPF that attacked me the other night. Bastard Joss!Muse. But I don't think it's unethical or immoral.
3. Fandom specific: Stargate: Atlantis. Major John Sheppard is the most boring main character in the history of sci-fi. Well, I over-generalize, just a little. But he's boring. He's funny sometimes, mostly when he delivers lines that would be a trillion times better if Jack were delivering them, But on the whole, he's boring to me. I don't like him. He annoys me. At best, he's a Lust Object for *insert character of choice here* McKay or Ford or Teyla but not Weir. Ew. But Sheppard? He's just some random guy without much of a history or much of interest to say. Don't like him. Blah.
4. Fandom-specific: Stargate. Jack/Sam and Sheppard/Weir hit my internal squick button hard. So does Dylan/Beka. Roddenberry Hero/strong woman makes me squick spontaneously. I'm sure there are other pairings like this that I like or even 'ship rabidly, but these particular ones seem wrong to me on a fundamental level. I think I just don't like the idea of strong, smart, tough-as-nails women turning to mush over guys like that. They can turn to mush, but over guys like McKay. Daniel. Harper. Not the flip and funny irreverent not-especially-smart but oh so tall and handsome Co (or 2iC, if you're talking Atlantis.) Yuck.
5. People should write more fic that is subtle, evocative, lovely, detail-driven, and UST or unrequited. There should be more unrequited love in fanfic. More fics that explore the delicate interplay of two people, that doesn't reduce their interaction to just one emotion, but takes into account the shared history and shared experiences and the difficulties and the arguments and the big, blow-out fights and the differences as well as the similarities and the happy squeeish love. People should write more UST. People should write less PWP. People should write less emotional porn and more good fic, dammit!
6. The first story you read in any particular pairing is probably not the greatest story ever. If you remember it with fondness, you probably shouldn't reread it, lest you be disillusioned. You should not rec it. It may be great for newbies, but as you read lots and lots and lots of fanfic for a pairing, you will discover that much of it is better than the first fic you read. (There are, of course, exceptions. If you started with anything by Anna S., there's a pretty good chance it's still as good as you remember it.)
7. Apology fics (i.e., fics that, with a few modifications, would make good ship_manifesto essays) don't make good fics. If your sole purpose in writing is to drag up all the cute canonical moments that made you realize Teal'c and Janet were in love, it's time to rethink the purpose of your fic. It's not likely that Teal'c will remember all those exact same moments and think of them in exactly the same way that you do. For this reason, I'm not actually a big fan of "Statistical Outliers," the quintessential Sam/Daniel fic. I'm already convinced they're So Madly In Love, thanks. I'd like a story now? Something unique to this fic, unique to these characters and to this author and to this particular situation.
8. Fandom-specific: Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. There is absolutely no point in canon until after "Seeing Red" that Giles/Willow would happen in an actual relationship sense. Given the characters, it's unlikely to happen outside that context. This doesn't rule out the possibility of numerous AUs, naturally, but I prefer AUs that actually deal with the canonical relationships, because I like the canonical relationships, dammit.
PS: This goes double for all fandoms. Canon is your friend. You can write interesting, compelling what-if AUs without totally tossing canon, and canon 'ships, out the window. They can do this and still turn up Ethan/Xander. I've seen it done.
9. Fandom-specific: Harry Potter: Draco Malfoy is a fucking spoiled brat and is a bully and I hate him and he is in no way interesting or sexy or remotely a good character or an interesting character or anything but a fucking bully and *violates Snacky's Law* exactly like all those mean boys who made high school a living hell for me. So I hate him.
10. I don't need a beta-reader (you, however, do). I know how to use Word's spelling and grammar checkers. I have access to transcripts and canon-picking sites for shows I watch. If I write a long fic, a ficathon fic, a plot-heavy fic, or something that I'm not feeling especially confident about, I'll ask someone to look over it. However, 90% of my fanfic goes sadly unbeta'd, because I desire instant gratification, like whoa. The writers on ff.net, however, desperately need betas, pronto.
For comparison's sake, I hardly ever have someone else read over term papers for anything other than mechanics (unless it's the professor, kindly betaing for free and telling me which mistakes would lower my grade.) While I care about fandom more than I care about my schoolwork (sometimes), I don't hold myself to higher standards for my fic than I do for my academic papers.
Whew! Rant like, way over. Please no flames?
Happy birthday divagypsy! May it be full of Sam/Daniel-ish squeeing. Will try to get a drabble written before the end of the day. :)
1. Spoilers. Are. Bad. I mean, okay, if you're lingering in the Sherlock Holmes fandom, it's probably smart to know that "The Final Problem" is not the end, but since it falls halfway through your book and the very next section is called The Return of Sherlock Holmes, but honestly. Spoilers. SUCK. We have not all seen OMG everything ever aired. We have not all seen Buffy S7. Or Angel S4-5. *cough*. Spoiler warnings, especially for big, honking, serious spoilers like "OMG at the end of the last episode they all die!" just... cut them, label them, and let me blissfully peruse my flist without screaming at it. This goes double triple quadruple for stuff that hasn't yet aired. Please. Honestly. CUT TAG LIKE WHOA.
PS: Moods can also be spoilerish. Titles can also be spoilerish. Sometimes, spoiler warnings can be spoilerish. *cough* Heroes *cough* Your cut tags are a courtesy to the spoiler virgin, okay? So try to be courteous about it.
2. RPS is a matter of taste. I love some nice, snuggly DM/BB fic on alternate Tuesdays, something PG-13 or lighter. Monaboyd canon is also kinda cute. I see no problem with squeeing over teh_dombilleh, or JR Bourne and Colin Cunningham kissing like whoa, or that really incredibly cute picture of Joss and Alexis Denisof getting snuggly. So long, of course, as you remember IT'Z ALL PASTEDE ON YAY. Sanity is definitely a plus when it comes to RPF and RPS, especially the part where it's FICTION. Hopefully we remember this whenever we're writing fic, but it's like double triple quintuple important when you're writing about real people.
There's like, way historical precedent for RPF. Everyone's seen the satirical (and hilarious) Bush/Kerry that made it into The New Yorker, right? And it wasn't even smacked with a OMG fiction don't' sue! label. Possibly because your average New Yorker reader is ten trillion times more intelligent than your average fangirl (no offense. I'm more of a fangirl than a New Yorker reader, myself. But I'm just saying.)
Invading the privacy of public figures means stalking them, or perhaps even speculating as to who they're actually fucking. Imagining prettiness in our head where they're fucking each other isn't invading anyone's privacy except our own. If our "canon" is things the celebs have made public: from interviews or commentaries or DVD extras or public events to which they have allowed the press, then we aren't invading their privacy. Not if we remember that our own crack speculation is entirely pastede on yay!
That said, RPS isn't everyone's cuppa, and I get that. I find more of it boring. I find NC-17 RPS distasteful. I also find wingfic weird beyond all reason, but that didn't stop me from writing some. But yeah. Don't like? Don't read. You probably won't find any here. Unless I finish writing the stupid fucking Joss RPF that attacked me the other night. Bastard Joss!Muse. But I don't think it's unethical or immoral.
3. Fandom specific: Stargate: Atlantis. Major John Sheppard is the most boring main character in the history of sci-fi. Well, I over-generalize, just a little. But he's boring. He's funny sometimes, mostly when he delivers lines that would be a trillion times better if Jack were delivering them, But on the whole, he's boring to me. I don't like him. He annoys me. At best, he's a Lust Object for *insert character of choice here* McKay or Ford or Teyla but not Weir. Ew. But Sheppard? He's just some random guy without much of a history or much of interest to say. Don't like him. Blah.
4. Fandom-specific: Stargate. Jack/Sam and Sheppard/Weir hit my internal squick button hard. So does Dylan/Beka. Roddenberry Hero/strong woman makes me squick spontaneously. I'm sure there are other pairings like this that I like or even 'ship rabidly, but these particular ones seem wrong to me on a fundamental level. I think I just don't like the idea of strong, smart, tough-as-nails women turning to mush over guys like that. They can turn to mush, but over guys like McKay. Daniel. Harper. Not the flip and funny irreverent not-especially-smart but oh so tall and handsome Co (or 2iC, if you're talking Atlantis.) Yuck.
5. People should write more fic that is subtle, evocative, lovely, detail-driven, and UST or unrequited. There should be more unrequited love in fanfic. More fics that explore the delicate interplay of two people, that doesn't reduce their interaction to just one emotion, but takes into account the shared history and shared experiences and the difficulties and the arguments and the big, blow-out fights and the differences as well as the similarities and the happy squeeish love. People should write more UST. People should write less PWP. People should write less emotional porn and more good fic, dammit!
6. The first story you read in any particular pairing is probably not the greatest story ever. If you remember it with fondness, you probably shouldn't reread it, lest you be disillusioned. You should not rec it. It may be great for newbies, but as you read lots and lots and lots of fanfic for a pairing, you will discover that much of it is better than the first fic you read. (There are, of course, exceptions. If you started with anything by Anna S., there's a pretty good chance it's still as good as you remember it.)
7. Apology fics (i.e., fics that, with a few modifications, would make good ship_manifesto essays) don't make good fics. If your sole purpose in writing is to drag up all the cute canonical moments that made you realize Teal'c and Janet were in love, it's time to rethink the purpose of your fic. It's not likely that Teal'c will remember all those exact same moments and think of them in exactly the same way that you do. For this reason, I'm not actually a big fan of "Statistical Outliers," the quintessential Sam/Daniel fic. I'm already convinced they're So Madly In Love, thanks. I'd like a story now? Something unique to this fic, unique to these characters and to this author and to this particular situation.
8. Fandom-specific: Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. There is absolutely no point in canon until after "Seeing Red" that Giles/Willow would happen in an actual relationship sense. Given the characters, it's unlikely to happen outside that context. This doesn't rule out the possibility of numerous AUs, naturally, but I prefer AUs that actually deal with the canonical relationships, because I like the canonical relationships, dammit.
PS: This goes double for all fandoms. Canon is your friend. You can write interesting, compelling what-if AUs without totally tossing canon, and canon 'ships, out the window. They can do this and still turn up Ethan/Xander. I've seen it done.
9. Fandom-specific: Harry Potter: Draco Malfoy is a fucking spoiled brat and is a bully and I hate him and he is in no way interesting or sexy or remotely a good character or an interesting character or anything but a fucking bully and *violates Snacky's Law* exactly like all those mean boys who made high school a living hell for me. So I hate him.
10. I don't need a beta-reader (you, however, do). I know how to use Word's spelling and grammar checkers. I have access to transcripts and canon-picking sites for shows I watch. If I write a long fic, a ficathon fic, a plot-heavy fic, or something that I'm not feeling especially confident about, I'll ask someone to look over it. However, 90% of my fanfic goes sadly unbeta'd, because I desire instant gratification, like whoa. The writers on ff.net, however, desperately need betas, pronto.
For comparison's sake, I hardly ever have someone else read over term papers for anything other than mechanics (unless it's the professor, kindly betaing for free and telling me which mistakes would lower my grade.) While I care about fandom more than I care about my schoolwork (sometimes), I don't hold myself to higher standards for my fic than I do for my academic papers.
Whew! Rant like, way over. Please no flames?
Happy birthday divagypsy! May it be full of Sam/Daniel-ish squeeing. Will try to get a drabble written before the end of the day. :)