Some thoughts I've recently had about fanfic

[laleia]

1. So there's this thing people do when the pairing they want to ship is in their fanfic, but is not in canon. Where they devote roughly five minutes of the fic talking about why the canon pairing is actually a recipe for disaster and would not work and ended in tears all around. They have to ruin the existing relationship in order to set up their OTP.

And sometimes, it's done well and subtly, and sometimes it's not, and sometimes I buy it, and sometimes I don't. I see this most often in breaking up Spock/Uhura for Kirk/Spock slash (though sometimes they break up Spock/Uhura for Uhura/someone else) and in breaking up Simon/Kaylee, most often for Mal/Kaylee (which grosses me out beyond belief; he is like her father). And I recently read it in a Steve/Danno fic detracting Danno/Rachel.

The thing is, I am so ridiculously picky and capricious about fanfic, and so I hate this whole canon-pairing-ruining thing (except for the one or two times it's done in a manner I am okay with -- I do not judge it based on whether or not it was done ~well~ or ~realistically~ but on whether it was in done in a way that was acceptable to my plot preferences). Part of this is because I tend to ship canon-pairings in a non-fanatic way, which is to say I'll read non-canon pairings as well, pairings that contradict my non-fanatic ships. If you start your fic off by insulting my non-fanatic ship, however, even if I'm not fanatic about my shipping, I'll be Seriously Annoyed.

But the thing is, even when it's a pairing I ship, I'm starting to get annoyed. Like, I ship Shikamaru/Temari pretty rabidly, but when they spend half the fic explaining why Shikamaru/Ino doesn't work, I'm over it. You don't have to bash Ino for me to ship Shikamaru with Temari.

2. Okay, but even if people don't address existing canon relationships when they set up their OTP, that annoys me too. Like I said, I'm weird. A perfect example of this is: I ship Viktor/Hermione. HP canon has the Ron/Hermione endgame.

Fanfics annoy me when they:

a.) Paint Ron as an abusive asshole (he's not)
b.) Paint Ron as an idiot (he kind of is, but not to the extent that fanfics will demonize him)
c.) Have Hermione cheating on Ron (I don't do infidelity)
d.) Handwave the whole thing like Hermione and Ron never got together (they did! it's canon!)
e.) Have them just randomly break up.

Which means that I don't read Viktor/Hermione fic anymore, because it is like my mind is a giant Catch-22 and I can no longer find fics that satisfy my Viktor/Hermione fic requirements.

3. I read this very well-written AU fanfic that I didn't at all enjoy because even though it was a very detailed Pirate AU with lots of wonderful stuff, BUT. ALL THE WOMEN CHARACTERS WERE PROSTITUTES. Seriously? All your men (but one) are fun-loving pirates who roam the seas and all your women are prostitutes? I do not approve.

3a. I consider getting someone high on Pirate-era-version-drugs so you can convince them to join in an orgy ... nonconsensual. So I approved even less after that.

4. Sometimes I get really tired of all the slash and slash goggles that I feel like are EVERYWHERE and slash up ALL MY CANONS, but obviously this is because I choose to lurk/stalk/hang out in a very slash-prevalent corner of the Internet/fandom, and if I ever really ventured out, I would find myself overwhelmed by het. But I never do venture out because the fic out there is of variable quality whereas the fic I have here is all of superb quality.

And every time I think that, I also think, God, it would really suck to be LGBT and have ALL THIS STUFF EVERYWHERE be about heterosexual romances and have all the people up hetting up your slash and be so tired of it all and even when people do write slash it's all weird and not-right because they exoticize it and stuff which is part of the reason every time I start plotting long epic original fics that never get written, I always think, why does my heroine (because it's always a female character and never a male one because secretly every one of my original fics that never get written are giant self-inserts: what would I do if magic happened in my life and I were actually awesome and could deal with it instead of gibbering in terror which is what I would do in real life?) have to have a male love interest? Why can't I have a female love interest? If not for her, then for someone else in my story?

And that's why my blatant self insert main character in my NaNo 2010 fic has a male and female love interest, even though I was iffy about sharing it with anyone because even though I enjoyed writing the love triangle, I thought that people might look at my blatant self-insert character being bisexual and assume that I was, and then I was like, well, why do I care if people think that? And I'm only probably heterosexual (I think I would have to go on a date or some other normal human social activity to be certain of this) (Who knows, my friends could be right and I could be asexual) (But I feel that if this were true I wouldn't be secretly reading so much pr0n on the Internet) (But real sex does sound so messy and not worth it so maybe I'll skip it for the entirety of my life) (Wow, I really hope nobody has made it this far and is actually reading all of my insecurities out on display).

Comments

[aimmyarrowshigh.livejournal.com]

I don't think I ever tried to make Finnick/Annie legitimate in my Finnick/Cinna, because I ship the hell out of F/A, too, and it was always the endgame. It's possible to write non-canon in a pre-canon fic (or even just "write non-canon ships"), slash OR het, and not ignore what happens in canon. I'm hugely annoyed by people who have the nerve to call any canon pairing "wrong." It can't be wrong -- it's what the writer/author/creator wanted, and that's obviously what was meant to happen. There is only one canon pairing in anything that doesn't make sense to me (Percy/Annabeth in Percy Jackson, if only because she NEVER showed attraction to him until the moment they kissed in the last book, but it was obviously always RR's intention -- he just built it poorly).

I think you make a lot of generalizations about "all fanfic" based on Supernatural and Harry Potter writers, and IDK. I see a lot more respectful fanfic, and I certainly feel that I personally respect my fandoms, a lot more than the generalities that you see. I mean, I agree that the things that you see (self-insert Mary-Sues as original characters, disregarding/insulting canon ships) are VERY very common, but I don't think it's fair to say that ALL fanfics do it.

Also:

But I never do venture out because the fic out there is of variable quality whereas the fic I have here is all of superb quality.

I come from almost solely het-centric centers of fandom, and we think the same thing about slash. :] And even now that I read a lot more slash than I ever have in the past?

I still think that a bad slash is wayyyyy worse than a bad het. Usually. Because bad slash is full of a writer who is so clueless that it ends up coming across both physically impossible AND homophobic, whereas bad het usually just ends up with too much wetness and a key that does NOT fit in that lock, honey. LOL. I think whether the slash or the het is better is purely a matter of the particular fandom. In Harry Potter, I've never found either that great. In THG, both are good. In Twilight (I know, bad/terrible/irrelevant example) the slash is PITIFUL but the het is very good. In Percy Jackson, the slash is better than the het. It just depends. :)

[eldarwannabe.livejournal.com]

I totally didn't read until the end. Totally.

I refer to myself a lot of the time as a canon-shipper. This doesn't mean I won't read fic that pairs/slashes two characters that aren't a pairing in the text -- I would have a lot less fic to read if I were that stringent -- but I read far less of it and I'm incredibly picky. And het or slash doesn't matter, I just find the pairing up characters outside of where they are supposed to be typically feels OOC. And then I don't want to read the fic. Especially when writers do flimsy breakups to get the characters of choice together. VERY OOC.

(There are pairings I will not read. Batman/Robin is horrible. Like Mal/Kaylee. Father figure O.O)

(Where are these het-center of which you speak? I'm wildly curious, because I've been involuntarily immersed in slash since day one of fanfic. And day one was nearly eight years ago, and I've been fandom-hopping for a while.)

I've studied more about gender portrayals in media, though, and I'm much more relaxed about the idea of "(re)claiming characters" especially considering how restrictive mainstream media tends to be about non-heteronormative characters. But even then, if a character has expressed a clear choice as opposed to an ambiguous one, I'm far less likely to read any story that contradicts that choice, be it a specific character or a sexual preference.

And now I'm puzzling over Hermione/Viktor. I've only read one fic that kinda/sorta shipped them, but it was a stunning fic, and totally believable. I've never really thought about the pairing enough to see what's out there (not endgame, like you said. And I think Hr/R is adorable) but they did have a canon-specific time where anything could have happened...*contemplates&

[laleia.livejournal.com]

Oh, at no point am I implying that this is about ALL fanfic. Obviously there is a lot of fanfic that does non-canon pairings well (otherwise I wouldn't read them) and do it without bashing the canon pairing, and there are some fanfics that do it with delegitimizing the canon pairing but in a way I am okay with. This is not meant to be a generalization about all fanfic, merely an observation about my personal dislike for those that do bash on canon pairings in a way I find annoying. And honestly, it is all up to my personal preference -- sometimes a single sentence can determine whether or not I "buy" a fic, and that sentence usually has nothing to do with how well-written or how respectful the author is, but more with how in line the author is with my perception of the canon.

Of course there is tons of bad slash, but that's all out there in the general Internet and I avoid it unless there's a new fandom I'm seeking fanfic for. I try to make my Livejournal flist and my fanfiction.net Story/Author Alerts the best way to streamline the best fics of superb quality, het or slash, precisely so I don't have to go out to seek new fic-creators too often. I like my corner of fandom. :)

[laleia.livejournal.com]

See, sometimes I will read incredibly bizarre character pairings in fic because the pairing itself has intrigued me, and I want to see where the author goes with it and how they set it up. Sometimes, they do it well. Sometimes ... not so much.

(Character pairings I won't read: Hermione/any Death Eater, because I really don't think Hermione would ever forgive any one of them for being bigoted and for going around killing Muggles because they thought it wasn't important, much less fall in love him. No, good sex won't make her forget his terrible deeds.)

(I know het-centers exist, but I honestly don't know where you would find consistently good-quality het fic. I mean, I have a fanfiction.net profile, and I have a lot of het writers bookmarked there where I get alerts when they update. But I had to wade through a lot of slush to find those gems. I know het-centers exist! But they are elusive!)

I think the reason I love Hermione/Viktor is because I identify with being a bookworm and the idea of an international Quidditch star asking me out would be AMAZING. Also, I think Viktor is the first one to really appreciate Hermione (seeing as Harry and Ron both take her for granted) so he gets kudos for that. I started shipping Hermione/Viktor, actually, because it was a side-pairing in this amazing Harry/Ron fic I read.

Also, what is this stunning Hermione/Viktor fic you speak of? Link, please? :D

[darklightluna.livejournal.com]

I did read your insecurities. I would like to say WORD to every single one of them. But then again, I think half the time we're just brain twins anyway...

[eldarwannabe.livejournal.com]

See, sometimes I will read incredibly bizarre character pairings in fic because the pairing itself has intrigued me

Yeah, I've done that. But I've gotten jaded with enough fic that I'm rarely willing to put in the effort. Wading through the slush is a pain. I feel like it's only fun when you get into a new fandom and you're still figuring yourself out, but once you've been there for long enough, it's just not worth it any more. Sure, you might miss good fic, but you won't tear your hair out in pain. *grumbleelusivehetcenters* (Not that they would necessarily be so useful, as there are many, many non-canon het pairings I'm not interested in either...)

(Also, Hermione/Death Eater is wrong, wrong, wrong.)

The fact that Viktor really appreciated Hermione from the beginning is what really endeared me to his character. It also made him much more interesting than just a Quiddich star.

Ha, ok, the fic is called Hermione: a History (http://hermione.magical-worlds.us/viewstory.php?sid=15&chapter=1) and it is very heavily Hermione/Ron, but you get clear vibes when Viktor shows up, and it was the fic that really made me think about their relationship. And I've recced this fic to non-fic readers, so I really really like it.