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You know what?
I'm gonna come clean: I Am A 'Shipper. ::covers eyes:: I am a pairing 'ho. True, I have a LOT of pairings that I love, but I read fanfic often solely because of the pairings.
This sometimes ashames me, because shouldn't I have outgrown this by now? 'shipping smacks of fangirling, and yet.
And. yet.
What is a 'world' but the space spun between two people? What is a universe but that spun out between several characters?
A world, a fannish universe, is a living backdrop, but inevitably the force of change through the world comes from the characters. By definition, I should say, the forces of change come from the characters; be they animal, human, divine, inanimate, or anthropormorphic.
(This is *me* we're talking about here, objects count as characters too ::winks::)
And thus, if a world, a universe, this setting for whatever story I'm interested in be hinged on the characters, is it entirely degrading or inherently wrong that I'm finding the stories I'm most interested in through the pairings?
I don't quite know myself.
I think, at the heart of the issue, is that this method of finding stories isn't 100% accurate 100% of the time, and that I'm probably missing many stories because of this method of filtering.
But, considering I have a limited amount of time to read fanfic, do I really want to chance how 95% of the stories with pairings I'm uninterested in I won't like, whereas there's maybe only a 10% chance of not liking a fic with a pairing I love? Should I really waste that much time slogging through fic that I *might* like 5% of the time, or instead just read the fic that I'd have a 90% chance of liking, even though I'd be giggling through a lot of bad writing while I'm at it?
I'm a pairing 'ho; and perhaps there a method to this madness...I'm *still* kinda ashamed of this as I think it tho, and trying to justify it to myself.
Then again, could it be compared to how if I don't like Cubism, then the best Picasso will never move me? Not sure.
Not sure.
Perhaps it also has to do with how, I think, it's viscerally hard for me to accept True Death in the fandoms that affect me most? I mean True Death in the sort of death that affects the underpinnings of what the fandom means to me, and this almost never means death literally. In this way, fandoms like Due South and HP have no True Death for me, there's no real way to cripple it in my eyes. But PotC has the freedom issue, or rather the *permanent* loss thereof (again, literal death does not count). OUaTiM's is the concept of leaving Mexico and it's warmth and color, to live stumbling amoung cubicles and faceless laughter. Trigun's the idea that Vash will ever completely give up, that he will not rise with the sun. Smallville's the idea that the Two will get sucked into this whirlpool of pain and misery *and* never grow into the brilliant, mythic legend that they *need* to be. And so on, where True Death means less the death of the characters themselves but rather the foundations and underpinnings of the worlds themselves.
What comes first, the chicken or the egg; the people or the worlds made of love and hate and joy and pain and color and background and noise spun out between them?
I don't quite know.
I'm gonna come clean: I Am A 'Shipper. ::covers eyes:: I am a pairing 'ho. True, I have a LOT of pairings that I love, but I read fanfic often solely because of the pairings.
This sometimes ashames me, because shouldn't I have outgrown this by now? 'shipping smacks of fangirling, and yet.
And. yet.
What is a 'world' but the space spun between two people? What is a universe but that spun out between several characters?
A world, a fannish universe, is a living backdrop, but inevitably the force of change through the world comes from the characters. By definition, I should say, the forces of change come from the characters; be they animal, human, divine, inanimate, or anthropormorphic.
(This is *me* we're talking about here, objects count as characters too ::winks::)
And thus, if a world, a universe, this setting for whatever story I'm interested in be hinged on the characters, is it entirely degrading or inherently wrong that I'm finding the stories I'm most interested in through the pairings?
I don't quite know myself.
I think, at the heart of the issue, is that this method of finding stories isn't 100% accurate 100% of the time, and that I'm probably missing many stories because of this method of filtering.
But, considering I have a limited amount of time to read fanfic, do I really want to chance how 95% of the stories with pairings I'm uninterested in I won't like, whereas there's maybe only a 10% chance of not liking a fic with a pairing I love? Should I really waste that much time slogging through fic that I *might* like 5% of the time, or instead just read the fic that I'd have a 90% chance of liking, even though I'd be giggling through a lot of bad writing while I'm at it?
I'm a pairing 'ho; and perhaps there a method to this madness...I'm *still* kinda ashamed of this as I think it tho, and trying to justify it to myself.
Then again, could it be compared to how if I don't like Cubism, then the best Picasso will never move me? Not sure.
Not sure.
Perhaps it also has to do with how, I think, it's viscerally hard for me to accept True Death in the fandoms that affect me most? I mean True Death in the sort of death that affects the underpinnings of what the fandom means to me, and this almost never means death literally. In this way, fandoms like Due South and HP have no True Death for me, there's no real way to cripple it in my eyes. But PotC has the freedom issue, or rather the *permanent* loss thereof (again, literal death does not count). OUaTiM's is the concept of leaving Mexico and it's warmth and color, to live stumbling amoung cubicles and faceless laughter. Trigun's the idea that Vash will ever completely give up, that he will not rise with the sun. Smallville's the idea that the Two will get sucked into this whirlpool of pain and misery *and* never grow into the brilliant, mythic legend that they *need* to be. And so on, where True Death means less the death of the characters themselves but rather the foundations and underpinnings of the worlds themselves.
What comes first, the chicken or the egg; the people or the worlds made of love and hate and joy and pain and color and background and noise spun out between them?
I don't quite know.
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same with pairings, i guess - you're always going to "feel" more for a certain character than another. and if you think that makes you miss out on great fic, then perhaps ask people to rec you great stuff with pairings you wouldn't necessarily venture into on your own? or better yet, ask them to rec you fics with pairings that THEY wouldn't venture into on their own, but were recced/forced to, and were pleasantly surprised.
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How do you feel about gen? Or other pairings written by your favorite writers?
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Other pairings by favorite authors are hit or miss, depending on the pairing itself though there's a higher chance that I'll like it.
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Well, ok, I sort of get the 'missing a lot of good stories' bit. But fandoms are huge as it is, and you're involved in several, so there will a lot of good stories you'll miss. An insane amount even. This isn't helping, is it?
At least looking for specific pairings narrows it down somewhat.
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::sticks tongue out at you:: heh, is it any surprise that I'm a friending-fiend?
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*ponders some more*
What comes first, the chicken or the egg
I know a rather good dirty joke that goes with that question...but you might have heard it already. =p
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*SNERK*
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And at this point I say fuck it all, as long as I'm not insulting other people's pairings, I'll read what I damn well please.
And I reserve the right to mock particularly ridiculous representations of other people's pairings just as much as I do to mock particularly ridiculous representations of my own.
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I really have to admit I don't get this. I mean, I get the idea that you (one) thinks you might be missing stuff that you might like, or wishing that you liked a pairing (or show) that a friend likes, but where do you think guilt at this kind of limitation arises? Did you feel it was somehow not "fair"? (and if so, to whom? the authors, the other characters?) Was it some personal desire to read everything, and therefore there was guilt at limiting yourself?
I'm really having trouble wrapping my head around the source of the guilt, somehow. To me, only being interested in slash stories about particular pairings is the fannish equivalent of only reading sff by particular authors, and only by recommendation.
And directing a bit at the original poster (heh), I'm having similar problems with understanding the source of the phrases "entirely degrading" and "inherently wrong." It's not that I'm rejecting it, necessarily, I just...don't grok it. Why is it wrong to have preferences, and construct your reading based on those preferences? And degrading... Who is being degraded? Is it somehow that having a focus on slash pairings (I'm assuming?) somehow is...more degraded than having gen, or at least a broader interest in non-pairings and other pairings? I dunno. I realized a long time ago that for me, fanfiction often fills a similar nitch to that filled by my very favorite romances growing up, and while I can often enjoy pieces that aren't slash, and aren't relationship-focused, nothing is going to give me that particular zing that fulfills me the way I really want except a story with particular pairings, that's at least partly focused on the relationship.
Maybe this is coming across as my demanding you guys justify yourselves in the way that it feels like permetaform is feeling she has to justify her own likes and dislikes, and I don't want it to. I'm genuinely just curious. I get a bit pissy towards people who make other people feel like their tastes are somehow lesser, or less virtuous, or unreasonable, or....
I mean, I don't think it's like vegetables, where a wider variety is good for personal health, really. I suppose maybe it's more like that if all one reads of any kind is a very limited selection of fanfiction, no pro-fiction either, but even then... There's a presumption that if you limit by this single factor, that this means that the range of stories is limited. Just because I choose to read only Jack/Daniel stories in SG doesn't mean I'm only reading one kind of story, that it doesn't have gen elements, maybe het elements, that it isn't mystery and/or sff and/or romance and/or historical, or whatever.
Um. Anyway. Buttons. Pushed. Sorry! And Mely, glad you got past the guilt. *g* Fuck it, read what makes you happy, and don't make yourself miserable forcing yourself to read what doesn't, or make yourself feel bad because you don't read what other people (or even yourself) think you should.
Permetaform, I think your comments after "and yet" are spot on. I think you can cultivate an appreciation for things that don't spontaneously move you, but they probably aren't ever going to move you the same way. And maybe we're missing a lot, but... I dunno. I read and write my fanfiction for fun, and for the fun of others, no matter how seriously I take it. I follow my bliss.
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But it's not that, because I'm not only interested in slash.
When I started reading X Files fanfiction, I approached it as I would any new genre or category of literature I wanted to learn: I tried to get a broad sense of what was out there, what was possible, what people were doing with the form and the characters and so on. And I found out that I could force myself into a detached appreciation of some things, but I only really loved MSR or gen stories which focused on the M/S dynamic; and when writers I liked wrote other things, sometimes I would like their writing enough to like it, but usually I wouldn't love it.
My tastes in fanfic are much more limited than my tastes in original fiction, and I feel like I'm failing the writers, yes, but also the general standard to which I hold my literary judgment. And some of this gets into textual interpretation, because I've seen people let fanon warp their judgment of the original sources, and I ... hope I can separate out something that doesn't fulfill my desires from something that's an artistic failure. I try. I don't know if I always succeed, but I think it's something worth trying to do.
*shrugs*
But mostly I read by pairing and by writer, feel mild guilt, and deal.
response (part 1)
My tastes in fanfic are much more limited than my tastes in original fiction, and I feel like I'm failing the writers, yes, but also the general standard to which I hold my literary judgment.
Hmmm. Mine are, too, in some ways. But then a lot of things I read in original fiction, I'm deliberately stretching myself, trying things to see what I think, new things, new authors, etc. My reasons for reading original fiction are in most ways very different than my reason for reading fanfiction. I go to fanfiction because I have a pre-existing relationship with particular characters/pairings that makes me want to explore specifically that. The only thing that really approaches that in original fiction is following an established author, with characters I've fallen for, or a particular type of book, because I'm looking for more of the particular type of emotional hit I want.
I guess because of this I really don't feel that it's any lack on my part that I don't care to read so widely in fanfiction, because I don't approach fanfiction in a "see what's out there" kind of way, and I never have. And even with original fiction, much of my appreciation of things outside my favorite authors and genres is often an objective, more detached appreciation, an admiration of ideas, of styles, of world-building, that doesn't necessarily kick me in the gut the way my more "limited" favorites due.
And ultimately... I don't really "get" failing the writers, I think because I don't feel any general obligation to be "fair" to the writers, to try things out on spec, to give them a chance, anymore than I do writers of original fiction, unless something I hear or read intrigues me. Maybe I used to. Maybe I used to feel I should always try something before deciding it wasn't my thing, but that was before I had a well-developed sense of what was my thing -- and it's a pretty broad thing, but it's not all-encompassing. Maybe it's just a difference in personality and character? I dunno. Still not really understanding the guilt thing. *g*
And some of this gets into textual interpretation, because I've seen people let fanon warp their judgment of the original sources, and I ... hope I can separate out something that doesn't fulfill my desires from something that's an artistic failure. I try. I don't know if I always succeed, but I think it's something worth trying to do.
I completely agree. I think some people read/write the fanfiction that represents how they wish canon was; others of us take cues that canon seems to present and want to read what fleshes that out. It can't help but color how you then look back at canon -- but I think everything you take in colors that in one way or another. And I think it's entirely possible to make the separation you state; I think of it as "they aren't writing for me." My not liking something, depending on why I don't, isn't a commentary necessarily on the intrinsic quality of the writing. But that's equally true in reading original fiction.
response (part 2)
It almost sounds to me like... you approach original fiction from a more idealized objective state (or on some level you think it's...better? to do so? less limited), while your appreciation of fanfiction is generally a much more subjective thing, just from the language and vocabulary that you're using.
I'm still puzzled as to where you find this (my words, obviously) sense of "obligation" to "the writers" comes from, that somehow you're "failing" them, (and/or your expectations of yourself), leading to the mild guilt. Can you expand on that at all? And how, in your view, does this failing of them tie into the way you see other readers allow their view of canon to be distorted by what they read?
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here's the thing: I got into fanfiction even though I was highly dubious at first. I got into yaoi and slash because I'd kept open-minded about it. I found some of my favorite fic-kinks by reading stuff that I wouldn't normally. I first started watching vids, just to give it a shot, even though I was mentally snickering at the idea.
So in a way, it's kinda been an ingrained pavlovian response to try things by this point...what if I miss something wonderful because I was simply prejudiced against a pairing? It's like the idea that I might never meet a soulmate simply because he is the wrong race...or the wrong gender.
There's also what
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Hmmm. I can see what you're saying -- you fear, in some sense, missing some possibly wonderful experience because you choose to limit yourself. For me I think this may boil down to personal goals? If your goal is to keep yourself open to every possible experience for fear of missing something wonderful (at the risk of personal harm, in a reading sort of way), then reading everything possible is one way to do that, and it's up to the individual to balance the possible gain against the possible loss. However, I think it's possible to remain open to new possibilities without feeling the need to try everything that comes down the pike. I guess it's not an either/or sort of thing, for me. I quite happily limit in some areas, not in others -- as I suspect you do, too. And ultimately, I think holding oneself open, and vulnerable, to possibility, is a very different thing than indiscriminately holding oneself open to everything on the off chance that the next thing might be the Next Great Thing -- if that makes sense. ie, having an open mind isn't having no mind at all (which I'm not suggesting is what you're saying). So, I guess I understand that fear, but the undertones I'm getting (which may very well be reflections of my own buttons) are more like "I should be trying everything, for fear I might miss something." It's one thing to meet all the different possible soulmates, talk with them, look them over and see if anything intrigues you to get to know them further; it's another to jump in the sack with each one that comes along on the off chance that this one might be The One.
There's also what laizeohbeets' pointed out in that sometimes it seems almost unfair or elistist if you heavily 'ship. For me, 'shipping always brings to mind fangirls who scream "OTP" and shut down all other pairings. And then again you have the prejudice thing going...and I'm prejudiced against prejudice. ;)\
What I saw her say is that she's never thought someone was unfair or elitist for not liking a particular ship. She said basically what I was trying to say: I read what I like, because that's what I like, and something someone else likes may be wonderful, but if it's not what I like, or what I want, it's not going to be what I want to read, and I don't see how that's wrong, or unfair, or whatever, because I can't wrap my head around this implied obligation to keep myself so open that having preferences or tastes and using them discerningly to provide for my own entertainment and edification is somehow wrong.
I don't think it's elitist to have preferences, or to express them. It's perhaps in poor taste to then continue with "and if you disagree with me, or have a different opinion, you're below me." That's elitist, and it happens. But simply having the preferences and acting on them? That's just self-knowledge, to me.
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Sparrington, Jack/Liz, and Tom/Ginny/Harry all the way, man.
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hmmm...y'know, I think that maybe part of why I'm feeling so guilty for 'shipping.
o.o
wow. Thank you.
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For me, fanfic is escapism from the show itself - even moreso as of late. In fandoms where I don't have an OTP (most of them, honestly) I'll read anything. I'll read pretty much everything for Angel, Buffy, or Queer as Folk for instance. But I don't read much of it. Whereas with Smallville I'm reading more fic than I did even in my X Files barbieshipper days...but it's all for my OTP. If someone were to grab me and point me in the direction of a fabulous fic that was for another pairing, I'd probably read it, but to be perfectly honest, I don't seek it out. I suppose I should feel guilty for that, but I don't.
Of course, the funny thing is that I do my damndest to not get tunnel-vision for a ship as far as everything else goes. I'll make fanart for anything (except Clana. They don't even have chemistry in *Photoshop*), vid anything that strikes me (I want to vid Clark/Lana/Lex very badly, and *have* vidded Angel/Buffy), and I try very hard not to base my judgements of episodes on the amount of screentime my favorite characters/pairings have. But as far as fanfic goes...all of that attention to fairness goes right out the window. Part of it is, I suspect, as you said - I only have a limited amount of time to read fanfic. Why would I read something that I wouldn't be able to get into, because I don't care about the pairing/characters?
Linzee
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I'm starting to understand that...the only thing is I have a knee-jerk reaction to trying new things fic and fandom-wise, because that was how I'd initially gotten into slash...
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But since I am a huge shipper-whore, I always tend to gravitate towards fanfics centering with pairings that I adore.
Ahh RPAF, does where crazy times, eh?
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Case in point: I think I'm the only person who writes the pairing in my icon.
There's nothing wrong with liking a particular pairing, or even excluding other stuff to read nothing but that. I don't know why people can get hung up over this sort of thing. Nothing short of what they did in A Clockwork Orange can make anyone read something. If you'd rather read something else, go ahead.
People. I just don't understand you. Why can't you all behave sensibly? (shakes head)
the people or the worlds
The world came first. The people need a place to exist, and that place needs to be there before they can live. They can change their world to the point where it's not the one they started out with, but the land always came first. It's lasted a lot longer than the people who lived on it and do its best to outlast the people who are living on it.
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mmm, I think we have a different idea of 'worlds'. When I say worlds I don't mean the land itself, I mean it in like 'fanfic world' like 'story world' like what people mean when they say 'world creation' in writing original work...in that the characters are the anchors for the world, inherently *part* of the world because there would be no world if there was no space between the characters, and that in some sense, this 'story world' would *not* exist without the people and would *not* exist if there were no characters to define the empty space.
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I tend to start out with both. I suppose it's kind of strange but it's what I do. I have to have one with the other and can't do it otherwise. If I hear a character say a line of dialogue ("We wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for the bloody unicorn" or something) then that's been affected by the world they live in. The character may have given me the dialogue, but it's been affected by their world. They came into existance at the same moment for me, and I can't separate them.
Does this help on your end?
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heh, yes. The Chicken or The Egg?
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The rooster and the chicken. The embryo separating into twin chicken fetuses and two chickens coming out of the same egg. There's no separation in my mind. Both play their parts, or neither do.
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:) This is me all over, especially the bit about having a LOT of pairings. But, you know, never as many as you.
*hugs*
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But, considering I have a limited amount of time to read fanfic, do I really want to chance how 95% of the stories with pairings I'm uninterested in I won't like, whereas there's maybe only a 10% chance of not liking a fic with a pairing I love? Should I really waste that much time slogging through fic that I *might* like 5% of the time, or instead just read the fic that I'd have a 90% chance of liking, even though I'd be giggling through a lot of bad writing while I'm at it?
Okay, listen carefully, because I'm about to tell you a not-so-secret-secret:
This bit that I've just quoted back at you?
Makes you akin to about 75% of fandom, yo. Seriously. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the vast majority of fans - even the ones who would characterize themselves as magpies like you do ("Ooooh, *shiny*!!!1!11!") - *still* use some kind of filter in terms of What They're Definitely Going to Read, What They Might Read, and What You COuldn't Pay Them to Read If Their Lives Depended On It. Because time, even in a fannish sense, *isn't* infinite; one has to choose here and discard there because the amount of time one has to do X, Y or Z thing in fandom is limited in the same way it's limited outside of fandom.
You're not being different or unreasonable or narrow-minded with this. You're effectively managing time using a form of preference as your guide.
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