how serial fiction broke clio's heart, part 2: the long bad summer

[jlh]

In my tags list, I have 14 tags that refer to specific "canons." Of those, 5 are reality shows, one is a book series, and the other 8 are scripted television shows. I'm going to talk now about a summer in which many of them ended, and others ended for me.

Comments

[flourish]

Totally agreed with your POV on the final book. I think that the thing that bothered me most about the entire series was that there was even less character development than in Buffy (which I love, but dude, she just does. not. ever. learn.)

[jlh]

It's funny how when the book came out such large parts of fandom really clamped down on any kind of dissent about the book, but the more I talk to people about it, the more I discover that a lot of people were dissatisfied with it! But that's fandom--it's so hard to get any sense of scale. (And why I adore fandomsecrets!)

[flourish]

I was always pretty deeply unhappy with it, but I wasn't really a fandom presence at that point, so I didn't notice that other people were clamping down on it. Everyone around me seemed to feel pretty betrayed (though they weren't fandomers).

[tropes]

I feel your pain -- these and many other shows are the reason I love SGA fandom. Because the show is for shit and makes no sense and I don't expect it to, and those lowered expectations make my viewing experience and my fandom experience a lot less fraught.

Sad, but true.

[jlh]

I wish that I could do that! But my experience trying to watch Heroes this year taught me that I can't just watch something that chaotic, especially sci fi, which I only kind of like. I know a lot of y'all are having fun watching Doctor Who/Supernatural/SGA mostly for the hot boys with guns or whatever, but I don't care about action so it's not enough for me.

[meezergal]

Extremely interesting viewpoint, that everyone's character is formed at eleven and that's why they can be sorted. Thus, they can't ever go over to "the dark side" (or the good side?), make a quantum leap mentally, etc...

Very interesting! I'll have to chew on that a while--it never occurred to me to think of things that way.

[jlh]

When it turns out that I've become interested in something it implied but never intended to follow up on; or it turns out that what it was was something that could only be interesting for so long, then, those are the series I drifted away from.

That's it exactly, and I think my problem is that I don't leave, but hang on and hope that things will turn around. But of course they won't, because priorities, etc. So I have learned not to do that, and that certain of my friends are not good barometers of these things because they also have different priorities than I do. What I'm trying to do now is understand mine, and then follow through on them without continually feeling like I suck for having different priorities. I need to speak up and say "I don't agree" a little more often instead of keeping my mouth shut and feeling bad about it!

[ali_wildgoose]

Hahaha, I'm ready for the next entry to contain something along the lines of, "it all would have been fine if ALISON HAD JUST SHUT THE HELL UP ABOUT THE ZUTARIANS." ;3

*absorbs with great interest*

[jlh]

I didn't go there! I thought about it, but I think you know, my massive insecurity about all things Avatar, especially fic and shipping and all of it, is just a thing that is true, and I'm not sure it will go away. The Zutarians might have behaved badly, but I think they were mostly just misguided. It's only tough because I'm sure exactly the same sentence would come out of a Quiller's mouth about me. I think it's more that I never realized how very deeply the "delusional" thing, and all the harmonian wank, really hurt me. But you know, I'm recovering!