mean girl confession

[hth]

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.

Comments

[sherrold.livejournal.com]

Oh, I so I hear you. I have a fairly strong OTP thing in this fandom, but I'll read anything on a rec, and once I've read something and loved it, I want all of my friends to read it too -- and damn it, if I've read it and loved it, they should trust me and read it! I don't care if it's about Parrish (3 minutes screen time) and Chuck the gateguy (2 minutes screentime), I wouldn't rec it to them if it didn't rock.

So, hmm, my issue sounds, um, like it's a little about me. Huh, fancy that. [g]

Keep writing Ronon, dude; you know we're loving what you're doing with him.

[ficbyzee.livejournal.com]

*nod* I get where you're coming from, and I get this frustrated about strict OTPers a lot--although, I must admit, I rarely get annoyed with OTPers who support *my* OTP. *is a hypocrite*

Personally, I'm weird about OTPs. I usually get attached to one pairing that really does it for me in any given fandom, and how much I read beyond that pairing really depends on how much interest I have in the fandom and the canon. In comics, I've noticed that my willingness to read anything outside of my OTP has dropped as I've grown more and more irritated with the canon, whereas in SGA I will read just about everything, despite my OTP being John/Rodney (although Rodney/Ronon and Ronon/Teyla are coming in close second these days). So... I guess it just depends. *laughs* I thought I had a point to this comment, but it got lost somewhere in my rambling.

[unlovablehands.livejournal.com]

I must admit, I rarely get annoyed with OTPers who support *my* OTP.

Jumping in here to say that that is so weird, dude. Because I have actually had intense OTPers of a particular pairing actually turn me off that pairing in fic and fandom. Not like I wouldn't read it, but like I was more selective in reading it because I was sick of people who just took it as a given.

[ficbyzee.livejournal.com]

*nod* Well, I've felt like that, too. What I meant was, say I'm in SGA fandom and you have a group of strictly OTP McKay/Sheppard 'shippers, and a group of strictly OTP Sheppard/Weir 'shippers. I will generally get more annoyed with the Sheppard/Weir 'shippers first, just because I don't like that pairing. The McShep folks would start to annoy me eventually, but I wouldn't jump to the annoyed and frustration reaction immediately, if that makes any sense. Which, yeah, is hypocritical, but there you go. *g*

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

I feel bad saying this, because, my God, SGA fandom gives so much feedback, it's stunning and humbling, so I hate to complain, but: yes. I hear you completely. Although, honestly, I'd be happy with people not reading other pairings--it's their loss, not mine--if they could just refrain from making gratuitously nasty remarks about them.

[carolyn-claire.livejournal.com]

I've wondered if rabid OTP types were actually true believers in One True Love, romantics of vast and scary proportions who feel that, for it to really be true love, even fictional true love, there can be only one. Faith! Loyalty! Devotion! Not only between the two beloved characters but also from the readers/writers/watchers toward both the concept and to its execution as embodied in their chosen couple. It's so much more romantic that way. Unless it's not.

[ravensilverwing.livejournal.com]

I'm a little slow it seems...the whole concept of OTP is just...foreign...I bounce through fandoms going from one pairing and then by sheer accident read X/P instead of X/Y and have this habit to then go OMFG what have I been thinking/missing...!?!

By the way thankyou. You've opened up the SGA fandom to a whole new level for me. Who woulda thought Ronon was so damn flexible. *smirk*

[dsudis.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether this is the appropriate place to say it, but I just want you to know that your Ray/Ray stories broke my Fraser/Kowalski OTP. Into little pieces.

I tend to think of myself as an OTPer, though I'm probably not in the way you're objecting to, and only with respect to some pairings. Most of the time, if I'm reading an X/P story, it registers as nothing more than a constant plaintive wondering what about Y? where's Y? This is going to make Y really sad... although there are a few pairings I can't read at all because my sadness for Y overcomes any possibility of enjoying the story (Sam/Jack over in SG-1, excluding Daniel, for instance--my favorite solution to that difficulty is the OT3, and have I told you lately that I love Alpha Centauri?).

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

While we've talked about this, and you know that I share some of this feeling (enough to love me some good John/Ronon, or John/Teyla or, um, yes, all right, Rodney/Ronon and Rodney/Teyla, shuddup) I want to float an alternate explanation for at least SOME of the OTP behavior, which is that, as a woman, I think the typical fan feels under a fair amount of pressure to be be socially polite and nuturiting--i.e. to pretend to like people, and other people's children, and, you know, your own children, etc. and that sometimes we have an equal and opposite reaction in fandom, which is to say a desperate selfishness--i.e. I will NOT give you feedback, and I will NOT read a story just cause you want me to ("Mommy, watch me! watch me! watch-") and I will NOT be polite just for politeness sake, damn you, because this is my ME HAPPY TIME." I don't actually think that we're at our best when we're like this--far from it--but I think it's the opposite of the other extreme kind of female fannish/social space that DOES have the impulse to put every story up on the fridge with a magnet shaped like fruit.

Just a thought, anyhow. (I'm around today working and grading, if you want me, not that you do!)

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Er, and pretend all the words there were spelled correctly, I haven't had coffee yet, kthanxbai.

[ladyagnew.livejournal.com]

I don't what it is about SGA, something in the water? but it's broken down my OTP tendencies. It's either the water or Rodney. I pretty much don't ship in the fandom so much as read Rodney/anyone. I have definite preferences (um, John/Rodney), but I'm easy; even my slash tendencies are weakening, b/c I think he is awesome with Sam or Teyla. I mean, I'm here for the slash -- the slash is like responsible for my being here!

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.

I know, that's the problem: lots of rational, logical things bug the shit out of me. But it never helps the annoyance. I don't get bugged so much by OTP-ness as by the, er, rabidness of some hardcore practitioners. You know what rational thing that bugs me? The insistence that every fic featuring something very dark or disturbing get labeled as such; logically, I get that people can get irritated at accidently reading something they feel repugnance for, but labels spoil! And I hate spoilers. I want that little spark of surprise that this is shaping up to be a torture-and-recovery fic or a nice death!fic.

My only observation about OTP-ness is that seemingly, the longer one is in fandom, the less stringent your OTP-ness seems to get. I mean, unless you started out in BtVS, where the norm seemed to be polyamorous criss-cross pairings (except for the hardcore shippers who were downright scarrrrry), you dipped your toe in because you wanted X with Y. You start searching for fic online b/c it feeds your desperate X/Y needs. And maybe that's so for the next three or four shows you 'ship, choosing new X/Y OTPs, but then you just start relaxing and begin broadening your horizons (hopefully) b/c no way will anybody's need for quality fic be fed by one pairing. Used to be, in TXF, I could not deviate from M/K. The very thought saddened me. But nowadays, I'm reading everything all over the place, as long as it's well-written and has suggestions of slash, I'm there.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I'd single out OTPs, because I feel there are similar category preferences/not read responses for other things too. I have a good friend who'll not read the bestest story if it contains certain pairings and certain scenarios, so I often tend to put no read characters or no read pairings in with the squicks. I won't read bloodplay, extreme embarrassment and breaking up mcShepp so to speak :-)

And while I kind of agree with the sentiment that OTP tends to be stronger earlier on in fandom, I've also found the opposite to be true. I don't think I've been as OTP in any fandom since my very first one, for example. Likewise, I've noticed among some writers/readers thqt the particular characterization they require for a story to work, often narrows doen over time rather than expands.

And I do believe it's all about our id vortex, all about the fact that this is not something that we read because of external expectations but because it hits us where it pleasures (i.e., i'll take Ces's other people's children and raise her a Finnegans Wake :-)

[carta.livejournal.com]

Well, you're not the only one who has that opinion. I don't tend to like strict-anything - people who only read their OTP, people who only eat one kind of sushi, people who only watch one kind of movie. Life is about experiences, and variety, yadda yadda. Also, it's kind of annoying when someone is so married to their otp that they can't even acknowledge that other pairings, even those that don't "split their ship", can be enjoyable to read. Tightminded, I say. Tightminded.

Then again. . . cesperanza makes a point that rings uncomfortably true for me here:

sometimes we have an equal and opposite reaction in fandom, which is to say a desperate selfishness--i.e. I will NOT
give you feedback, and I will NOT read a story just cause you want me to

which is EXACTLY the response I have to stories that are rec'ed all over the place. The sheer volume of adulation turns me off. Same with television (hello, Buffy, took me FOREVER to get into that show), and same with hardcore OTPs. What's worked for me in SGA so far is that, to the extent that I've seen, there hasn't been rabid OTPness as much as an overriding preference. But I've found stories with other pairings fairly easily.

I feel like I have rambled way off topic now, and will go back to my brief. :P

[elfiepike.livejournal.com]

It's either the water or Rodney. I pretty much don't ship in the fandom so much as read Rodney/anyone.

ahahah, it was pretty much the same with me. i am not inclined towards OTPs (though i love using the term and as many permutations as possible--OT3! OTBFF! OTJigglypuff!) but i had thought, coming into sga fandom, that i was going to be a john/rodney person.

but no. really it turns out that i'll read any pairing whatsoever as long as rodney is, you know, rodney. he can have one line in the whole thing and if it's a rodney line i will be like "this is the best thing ever."

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

To me, a lot of the strict OTP-ers seem young. (Very young. Very, very young.) (And by 'strict OTP-ers, I mean those people who occasionally write the annoying little messages about how something was *almost* perfect, but John really treated Rodney badly and shouldn't he appologize for that.) (Not that they talk to me much, it's just that if I read comments on stories, I do see them around)

And I say this with love and indulgence, as I think that they should be able to get what they want in fandom, but me, I am looking for richness and complexity for at least part of the time. So, I say I have preferred pairings, not OTPs anymore. And in general, I will pick a story to read that has my preferred pairing as the focus, unless one of my fav authors posts in another pairing, as author trumps pairing in my decision-making process. (Same thing with reccs. If there is a lot of buzz about a story not in my preferred pairing, and it's coming from people I trust, then I will check it out before I pick up yet-another preferred pairing story.) I am primarily reading to get an emo porn moment, so I'm quite willing to read a variety to get that.

Now, if that widly-recced story or one of my trusted authors starts chipping away at one of my preffered pairing guys...I bail. Flat out bail. I just can't read stories with extremely strong negative views of one of my guys, no matter how popular their are or no matter what I am missing. It's a deal breaker for me, and while some people might cast this as the negative side of having an OTP, it's just where I am at.

I like my guys, and I'll read outside the relationship, but the characterization has to fit somewhere in my three point.

[j00j.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I've ever had an OTP to the point where I wouldn't read anything else, and that includes XF fandom back way back when I was in high school. There are usually pairings (Mulder/Scully, to continue the XF example) or characters I'm *less* interested in (I still don't understand the attraction to Skinner, but that's just me), but a good author can sell me on just about anything. In fact, I *want* you to give me the backstory of characters the show can't be bothered with (yay, Ronon!!), or sell me the weird pairing of characters who've never interacted on-screen (Krycek/Pendrell, anyone?). Hell, I like crossovers, too. Some characters just ought to meet.
Now, there are fandoms which tend to have one major pairing and not much else, because there's little focus on other characters-- The Sentinel, for instance, is mostly about Jim and Blair. Almost an OTP by default, if you will. But if you want to sell me another pairing, I'm totally open to that. And, of course, I like me some gen. Basically if it's well-written, I'll read it. Now, OTP evangelism or shipping wars *do* tend to annoy me, even if they're for a pairing I enjoy reading-- I, too, do not enjoy the attitude of THIS AND ONLY THIS IS ACCEPTABLE. It can be rather grating.

[stungunbilly.livejournal.com]

Ah, OTPs are fine by me. Some of my favorite stories come from fanatics, y'know? I'm a vagabond, most of the time, with situational fan loyalties, so I value folks who can have One True Fandom for a long time, with a favorite pairing, because they sometimes produce stories with a depth accounted for by the strength of the obsession.

But I need variety or I start to cry, so I'm just glad there are options.

[amalthia]

I don't think I've ever really had a OTP for any fandom. Though back in highlander days I'll admit I absolutely loved Methos/Duncan the best but I could still read Methos and Duncan with other partners. I guess for me I just like variety and it seems weird that some people limit themselves on purpose. I haven't run into any rabid OTP people but apparently there were a lot in SG-1 and it caused a lot of conflict in that fandom.

Um anyway, I think I get what you're saying.

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

it registers as nothing more than a constant plaintive wondering what about Y? where's Y? This is going to make Y really sad...

I totally relate to this! I tend to have favorite characters and pairings rather than one true pairing, but certain pairings really don't work for me because they leave out a favored character. In SGA my favorite character is Rodney, and I know it sounds terrible, but I often have a hard time getting interested in stories that don't feature him in some way. I can get behind Rodney paired with any member of the team, but in a story that pairs up any other two members of the team, I find myself distracted, wondering what Rodney thinks, how Rodney feels, etc. (Surely not what the author was hoping for!)

[caseylane.livejournal.com]

Gosh, for me it depends on the fandom. Sentinel, Due South and QAF-US I'm OTP (that QAF OTP is the other one btw, Brian/Michael). But if the show seems to have a large cast like HP than I can be a whore, only limiting myself by avoiding just certain characters that I don't like. SGA I'm still pretty new at, so I don't have any feeling about any particular pairing at all, as long as it's slash. The few rec's I've received have all been McShep so I haven't read anything else yet.

[marysuewriter.livejournal.com]

>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?

-----

This explains my take on this subject completely. I've found some fantastic writers through stories that made me say 'I don't think I've ever considered that pairing' before reading it.

I guess if someone is so closed minded that they won't even read something because it's mint chocolate chip instead of the pralines and cream that they prefer, then it's sad for them. Maybe they really don't like any pairing but x/y, but they certainly don't have to insist anyone writing x/p is wrong. Just don't read what you don't like, how hard is that? It's not like these things aren't labeled and rated to hell and back.

[gweneiriol.livejournal.com]

I knew someone online who was (still is as far as I know) a strict OTPer in every fandom she has and she'd get all childish if I refused to read (or even get into) her OTP, so I totally understand what you mean. Don't understand that kind of thought but to each their own. :D

[palebluebell.livejournal.com]

This is such an interesting post, I've been mulling over the same thing myself: how I limit myself by not venturing past certain fic-borders, missing both new ideas and quality writers.

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.

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

Eh, all our issues are really all about us. Otherwise they'd be someone else's issues, yeah?

And I don't remember if I've said so before or not, but your icon? Most happy-making thing on the planet, OMG.

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's truly not the feedback issue that gets to me! Again, no complaints there. I think it's more that the constant OTP rah-rahing from some quarters seems to me to power this endless, endless fandom machine that cranks out staggering quantities of ultimately pointless, cookier-cutter fic to meet the demand. Like people's love for their OTP is so single-minded and bottomless and all-consuming that it doesn't matter what the stories are like, so long as there's more of them, always, constantly. And I'm like, you know, chill. Just take a step back and let things percolate and let people play and get creative and try new things, as readers and as writers, rather than nailing home this whole idea that OMG, there must be more of my OTP, more, more! So I fear that it makes people try to produce more constantly, and we've certainly seen that even pro writers can't stand up to that kind of thing without losing a lot in quality, so it's no surprise that fan writers do, too.

Or maybe it's just that 90% of everything is crap, and I'm looking for someone to blame *g*