astridv | (no subject)

I wonder how people would feel if they constantly got comments like "I had to grit my teeth to get past the McShep but otherwise great story" or "Obviously I skipped past the McShep parts because that pairing is just wrong, but great fic!" or "Rodney is such a terrible character because [list of reasons why Rodney McKay is a terrible character] and I hate him on the show but you almost made me like him here!"? Because people comment like that on fanwork that contains McKeller All. The. Time. All the fucking time.

(I just saw another one first thing this morning.)

Or how would they feel about fic requests at genrefinders phrased "since obviously Sheppard and McKay are both straight, the slash makes no sense and it's OOC so I'm looking for Rodney/Katie and John/Larrin."

You know what all this looks like to me? Like a discouraging tactic, to actively discourage people from including any hint of Keller or Rodney/Jennifer in their fanwork at all. Maybe that's not the intention, maybe it's just thoughtlessness, but that's how it's starting to come across to me.

Seriously, is it so terrible to have a bit of diversity in fandom? Is another pairing so threatening? I don't get it.

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Heh -- I saw those posts, after I saw you mention something about this in passing in one of your other posts. And you're dead on. I'm not sure its intentionally discouraging, but it is still discouraging. I haven't written a long story in a year, and neither have a lot of writers I used to read. The people who reveled in canon, who liked to stretch it and mess with it--if they write these days, it's a one-off, as opposed to how prolific they used to be. You know, I was thrilled with the idea of a romance in canon last year, because it added another depth to play with, but when you have so much hatred and mean comments thrown at it week after week after week....

Ah well. That's the way it crumbles, right? Here's hoping the genficathon does the heart good!

*nods* I think you nailed something here, because there are different ways that different fan-writers relate to canon, and that might affect how we relate to criticism of canon, too. It's probably too simplistic to say there are only two kinds of fic writers (the ones who like to work within canon, and the ones who like to use canon as a springboard for other things), especially since a lot of writers do both, but there's definitely a sliding scale of canon-adherence among fic writers, and I think it's those who like to stick close to canon who are being hit the hardest by the general negativity in fandom towards certain canonical developments. I certainly don't mean to suggest that either way is "right" or "wrong", but I do think that canon-adherent fans (like me and you) have more trouble maintaining our squee in the face of the fact that an awful lot of the fandom really doesn't like canon right now. We don't really have the option of just walking away and creating our own edited version of canon, because it's not how we fan on things. And when we include unpopular canon developments in our writing (because that's how we think -- it may be good or bad, but it's still canon to us), then we come in for the same kind of criticism as the show's writers for writing it in the first place.

Ah well. That's the way it crumbles, right? Here's hoping the genficathon does the heart good!

Right! I'm so happy that's gonna happen again this year.

And judging by the response this post and similar have been getting there're really plenty of people left who feel as we do, which makes me feel optimistic.