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This is a thing that's been wrong with me for many and many a year now, and I just don't tell people, on account of the shame and guilt and all. But it's gotten worse since SGA -- a lot worse -- and
There is a part of me that HATES and wants to PUNCH people who have strict OTPs. Isn't that mean and awful? I know! It totally is!
A lot of people, me included, tend toward hyperbole in general, and toss around "OTP" to the degree that we have two and a half OTPs in every fandom and three on Monday; it's basically just nifty in-group slang for "hey, this pairing rocks my socks!" I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the people who DO NOT and WILL NOT read stories that aren't about Character Blah and Character BliddyBlah being In Love, preferably Forever.
I don't know why that bugs me so goddamn much, but it does. In my rational heart of hearts, I know that there's no arguing with taste, and nothing in the world could possibly be wrong with people having different tastes in stories, different needs and interests and hopes and dreams and whathaveyou. Yay, diversity! I'm usually all for it. Not in this case, however. Two possible reasons for that:
1) I'm just a bitter, beaten-down progressive who's been burned entirely too many times by people who take the attitude that ONE THING and ONLY ONE THING is acceptable, out of a vast range of possibilities. I am taking this knee-jerk hatred of people who try to reduce a complicated, rich, surprising world into one-size-fits-all for everyone and totally unjustly projecting it onto people who know what they like for themselves and stick with that thing, as is their perfect right. (However, it doesn't help that the language OTP-types use sometimes devolves into "But Blah and BliddyBlah just HAVE to be together, because OMG, they SO HAVE TO! The LOVE, it cannot be thwarted!!! Death to the tramps who come between them!!!" I imagine this is mostly hyperbole, too, but it does carry the unpleasant undertone of "Why are you doing it wrong?")
2) Deciding, sight unseen, that you like X/Y so very, very much that you will not like X/P seems to imply that there's a set of expectations you have about both X/Y stories and X/P stories, such that you know you'll like the former better than you like the latter. Which is okay, but the truth is, you don't really know what a story is like until after you've read it. Even the most hard-core OTPer must have read stories in their pairing that just did not do it for them...right? Those stories thwarted expectations in some way, so that you don't get what you felt like you were going to get, what you were looking forward to. So why, why in the name of all that's holy, can't that work in reverse? Why can't people imagine that perhaps a story they don't walk into already expecting to like might in fact turn out to be surprisingly good, for reasons that perhaps never even occurred to you before you read it? Intense OTPishness sometimes seems to me like a refusal to be surprised by a story, which is ultimately a refusal to be drawn in at all, to let the story *have* you. And that's the way I read, and it's all too easy to go from "I don't understand why you're not like me" to "I see no reason you shouldn't be more like me, dammit!" -- a line I have unfortunately, in this case, crossed.
I don't even know why I'm unloading this right now. I almost didn't at all because I don't want it to look as if I, as a habitual writer of pairings that are less popular than some other pairings, am pulling some kind of weepy "I am being denied the attention I so richly deserve!" routine, because actually I get a dreadful lot of attention and approval from my fandom; I have zero complaints on that score. Truthfully, there's a lot to be said for tapping into a fandom niche market; you stand out. It's all about branding, baby! Anyway, it's not me being needy, I promise.
Moreover, it's none of my goddamn business what other people choose to read or not read in their spare time, and I know it. And really, I'm not usually like this, I swear. It's just a thing I have. I'm hoping medical science is, even as we speak, working on a cure.
There is a part of me that HATES and wants to PUNCH people who have strict OTPs. Isn't that mean and awful? I know! It totally is!
A lot of people, me included, tend toward hyperbole in general, and toss around "OTP" to the degree that we have two and a half OTPs in every fandom and three on Monday; it's basically just nifty in-group slang for "hey, this pairing rocks my socks!" I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the people who DO NOT and WILL NOT read stories that aren't about Character Blah and Character BliddyBlah being In Love, preferably Forever.
I don't know why that bugs me so goddamn much, but it does. In my rational heart of hearts, I know that there's no arguing with taste, and nothing in the world could possibly be wrong with people having different tastes in stories, different needs and interests and hopes and dreams and whathaveyou. Yay, diversity! I'm usually all for it. Not in this case, however. Two possible reasons for that:
1) I'm just a bitter, beaten-down progressive who's been burned entirely too many times by people who take the attitude that ONE THING and ONLY ONE THING is acceptable, out of a vast range of possibilities. I am taking this knee-jerk hatred of people who try to reduce a complicated, rich, surprising world into one-size-fits-all for everyone and totally unjustly projecting it onto people who know what they like for themselves and stick with that thing, as is their perfect right. (However, it doesn't help that the language OTP-types use sometimes devolves into "But Blah and BliddyBlah just HAVE to be together, because OMG, they SO HAVE TO! The LOVE, it cannot be thwarted!!! Death to the tramps who come between them!!!" I imagine this is mostly hyperbole, too, but it does carry the unpleasant undertone of "Why are you doing it wrong?")
2) Deciding, sight unseen, that you like X/Y so very, very much that you will not like X/P seems to imply that there's a set of expectations you have about both X/Y stories and X/P stories, such that you know you'll like the former better than you like the latter. Which is okay, but the truth is, you don't really know what a story is like until after you've read it. Even the most hard-core OTPer must have read stories in their pairing that just did not do it for them...right? Those stories thwarted expectations in some way, so that you don't get what you felt like you were going to get, what you were looking forward to. So why, why in the name of all that's holy, can't that work in reverse? Why can't people imagine that perhaps a story they don't walk into already expecting to like might in fact turn out to be surprisingly good, for reasons that perhaps never even occurred to you before you read it? Intense OTPishness sometimes seems to me like a refusal to be surprised by a story, which is ultimately a refusal to be drawn in at all, to let the story *have* you. And that's the way I read, and it's all too easy to go from "I don't understand why you're not like me" to "I see no reason you shouldn't be more like me, dammit!" -- a line I have unfortunately, in this case, crossed.
I don't even know why I'm unloading this right now. I almost didn't at all because I don't want it to look as if I, as a habitual writer of pairings that are less popular than some other pairings, am pulling some kind of weepy "I am being denied the attention I so richly deserve!" routine, because actually I get a dreadful lot of attention and approval from my fandom; I have zero complaints on that score. Truthfully, there's a lot to be said for tapping into a fandom niche market; you stand out. It's all about branding, baby! Anyway, it's not me being needy, I promise.
Moreover, it's none of my goddamn business what other people choose to read or not read in their spare time, and I know it. And really, I'm not usually like this, I swear. It's just a thing I have. I'm hoping medical science is, even as we speak, working on a cure.
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-10 02:54 am (UTC)From:I think people would be surprised at how much pleasure they'd gain from pushing those boundaries a little. I only do it now and again, mainly because I'm lazy and it's so terribly easy to stay with what you know, but when I do cross fic-borders the rewards often vastly outweigh any effort.
But I must admit to one personal reservation - and I'd kick my own self in the pants over this if I could - I can't read John/OthernotRodney if it's eluded to that Rodney might be hurt by the pairing. Which is censorship, and I hate it that I do that, but the grief I feel for Poor-Lonely-Rodney-Lamb detracts any enjoyment I might get from the story.
To my unending shame at my stupidity I need to have it made plain that Rodney either couldn't care less or he actually gives his blessing to the union, or he gets to be part of things by the end. No amount of self-scolding seems to be able to shake this idiocy loose. Total silliness.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-10 01:23 pm (UTC)From:So in my head, that's what I'm doing when I write dark!fic, and that's the show I'm going to see when I read it. It's like Golden Opportunityland. "Look, Rodney! Look what I've got for you! Tragedy, failure, unrequited love! Woot!" And I sort of assume he feels the same way *g*
But what can I say? We're all irrational maniacs in our own special way. If this is your wonkiest habit, I'd say you're living a pretty clean life!