rantish, introspective crap, and BSG fandom

[leda13]

My lj is for writing fic in, and that's getting few and far between lately. I don't really know why, because the story ideas are all there, and unless I've had something go enormously cerebrally wrong (and haven't noticed) in the last few months, I have no reason NOT to be able to write them. But I can't. And every time I read about BSG fandom and

Comments

[fairnymph]

Leda

[leda13]

I'm thrilled you like my writing - more than thrilled - and glad you said so. I didn't really want this to turn out to be a request for ego stroking (though I'm not sorry, hahah! *grin* you can post here anytime!) so it's nice to find it anyway.

But as far as the HP fiction goes, I don't think anything of mine still exists on the 'net, except perhaps my last unfinished attempt at a version of HBP, which is at Leaky Cauldron somewhere, I think, under my penname Taish Melwell. As an unrepentant but unhopeful H/Hr shipper, I knew I wasn't going to be 'happy' with HBP, but I didn't know why - at least, it wasn't why I thought. I haven't finished the book properly, and I'm not sure I can. I ceased reading or participating in the HP fandom a few months before that book came out. I had a few stories up on the warner brothers boards, which afaik were lost with the rehash of those forums. I have a couple of shorts - "Static" and "Pinion" (both Hermione!introspec) - still on my drive and if I can polish them up enough to be satisfied, I'll

[lyssie]

Sweetie, your first mistake was paying attention to crack_van. *ducks and runs* (yes, I'll reply longer in a minute, I'm just feeling snarky)

[leda13]

Snark is always welcome in my world. *G*

[obsidianpond]

I hope you are not feeling discouraged from presenting any of your work. The paradoxical thing I've noticed about being in fandom that is it is rather uncool to be a part of the mainstream. I like K/L almost to the exclusion of any other pairing yet I'll read other types too. This isn't because I feel I should broaden my horizons or whatever but because of the quality of the fic. Yes, you write Kara and Lee, but you write GREAT Kara and Lee. You obviously put a lot of thought and that would make any work worth reading

[leda13]

sometime I feel I *am* watching the show alone, that everyone (or almost everyone) else is watching something completely unrelated with the same characters in it! And sometimes I think I'd be happier if that were true

[raffaella]

I'm discouraged from writing: I'm finding myself questioning the quality of my work by other people's standards, because there are a lot of intelligent, literate, discerning readers who seem to find nothing valuable in it because of my taste in pairings.I find that very sad. But if they're not judging your writing, just your pairing, it's not a comment on you at all. For what it's worth, I find your writing fantastic, but I also have to admit that I love the pairing. While the distinction is pretty clear in my head -- if a Lee/Kara fic is badly written or completely OOC, I won't even finish it -- I know that the pairing also matters to me. There are pairings I won't read, just because I'm not interested, I don't see them or they squick me

[raffaella]

Just to add that we probably all have our own set of blinkers, I think. I'm aware of mine, but then I don't have much to say about the pairings I don't read, since I'm not reading them.

[bantha_fodder]

I wish you hadn't locked this. This post is AWESOME.

[leda13]

if I unlock it, will you defend me from rabid slashers who come to pick holes in my thin veneer of intellectualism?

*loves on you*

[bantha_fodder]

Of course I will.

[leda13]

Haha! Joking - but thank you. Unlocking!

[lyssie]

sigh. I shouldn't code before breakfast

[leda13]

I had caffeine for breakfast. Buzzed by ten o'clock.

I'll tackle the Kara/Lee thing first. Unfortunately, I can't speak for everyone else, but I do know that while I don't like Kara/Lee as a pairing, I'd never say that it was automatically boring or trite fic. Some of the hands-down best BSG fic has been Kara/Lee.
- You're actually one of the people I look for in feedback because I know you don't 'ship Kara/Lee; if I can sell you a story, then I know that I got something right. I wish more antiship readers were like you. But they're not, and that's half the problem.

with BSG, I've seen people say that Kara/Lee is so well-written in fic because slashers are writing it.- Ugh, that's another horrible generalisation, isn't it? That what good fic is written is written by people who would otherwise write slash, because only slash writers can write good fic? That's a lot like the idea that L/K is actually a slash couple because by our norms, Starbuck is more like a man than a woman

[brynnmck]

I completely see what you're saying here, and I've been having sort of similar issues with fandom lately. (Came very close to deleting my journal, in fact, but then I was like, but, feedback! Because I am a whore.) Unfortunately, I think that the nature of fandom--and of fen, actually--sort of naturally predisposes it toward wank. Cliques develop, judgments fly, etc. Possibly it's because--and this is a stereotype, but I have found it to be true--many of the people involved in fandom do not always have the highest self-esteem (and I include myself in this). People want to be part of something exclusive, something special, and therefore you get this anti-"mainstream" crap. It's annoying, but it's very common

[brynnmck]

And part II, because I am incredibly long-winded...

As for PWPs... it's interesting, because I have sort of the opposite problem... I feel like a story is less likely to be read if there isn't any sex in it. Like, I kind of hate putting ratings on my fics, because they rarely involve sex, and I'm afraid people will pass over them when they see that "PG-13" or whatever. I do think that there are a lot of really terrible PWPs out there, and maybe they're more common than other types of badfic because they're so potentially formulaic--I've read (or started) a ton of PWP fics in BSG fandom that are pretty much your basic Tab A, Slot B thing, and I wonder why they even bother calling the characters "Kara" and "Lee," because they really could be anyone (either that, or they are specific people, but totally unrecognizable as Kara and Lee, but that's a whole 'nother rant). In the case of your smutty fics, and of Kate's, and all the authors who write good PWPs, half the hot is the clear character development. I mean, there are certain

[leda13]

Oooh - the 'who'll read it when there's no sex' question IS a problem. I know we have a dearth of genfic and a dearth of story-arced fic, and I think that may very well be contributing to the issue. The influx of Kara/Lee influencing the writer to include sex as a means of bolstering the audience, and so forth, right? That's a great insight. I never thought about that before and how that might influence the fandom

[brynnmck]

interaction with other characters is how I personally interpret the characters of BSGThat's actually a really good point, and it's probably true with most fiction, actually. I studied theater in college, and we always used to say that you learn more about your character from what other characters say about them than what they say about themselves. And it's even more true than usual on BSG, when so many of the characters are so repressed or are hiding their emotions/motivations, etc. Interesting insight