MY FUCKING FANDOM GIVES ME FUCKING FITS, part 34,849

[hth]

Warning: the following is not nice. It is not just, it is not kind, it is not respectful, and it may not even be sane. I may regret it in the morning, I don't know.



In clicking randomly through lj links this evening, I ran across a post-ep entry from somebody whose name I know from SGA fandom -- I specify that because I want to say she's not someone I have some kind of pre-existing grudge toward; I really only recognize the name and know nothing about her, really (I'm even only assuming it's a "her," out of statistical likelihood). And even though I've been frothing at the mouth for an hour now, I'm not trying to put her in particular on the spot for Fandom Crimes writ large, which is the reason I'm not naming her or being super-specific; I suppose she'd recognize herself, and maybe some other people would, too, but mainly I'm hoping it's anonymous enough to let me vent without putting her in an embarrassing position.

That said.

There was a person, right, a relatively prolific writer of and about Sheppard/McKay, and she'd seen an episode, and the episode contained some pretty obscure potential subtext between two characters that she particularly dislikes as a pairing -- enough that she felt it might give people an excuse to write fic about this pairing. And to paraphrase, she basically said, Oh, God, I hate CharacterZ/CharacterQ, and lately everyone seems to love them, and this will only get those other fans all excited. Maybe I'll just unsubscribe from sga_noticeboard until I don't have to worry about seeing all those CharacterZ/CharacterQ stories floating around.

And I don't exactly know where to begin, but I just -- I continue to be so fucking appalled at the outrageously self-centered, entitled, black-hole-of-need wing of McShep fandom. YOU MOTHERFUCKERS ALREADY OWN EVERYTHING. You are everywhere. Your pairing is everywhere. Are we even *on* the same sga_noticeboard? People are writing you literally a dozen or more stories PER DAY, all about your darling lovelies. YOU HAVE FUCKING WON, ALL RIGHT? Now get off our fucking backs!

I don't know if there will be a mad upsurge in Z/Q fic, but I'm pretty sure that if so, "mad upsurge"=maybe five or six stories MAX, TOTAL written by X/Q fans in response to Episode T. But your VIRGIN FUCKING EYEBALLS aren't capable of doing what we plebes do every day of our lives and PAGING DOWN your flist, past the links to the stories you don't want to read? You're too goddamn good for that? The mere knowledge that other people are out there writing their crazy Other Pairings is so upsetting for you that you have to go lie down with a cold compress until it's over?

Well, lucky fucking you -- because it will be over. If I want to unsub and come back when everybody's writing what I want and not writing what I don't want, I'll be gone for a factor of FOREVER.

And you know what? I do truly think that's what a lot of people want. I think there's a stratum of this fandom that would like people like me to just go away, because all we're doing is breathing the oxygen of the McKay/Sheppard people. And it's not just that they don't like our pairings and they don't care what we do -- I've never read a Lorne/Parrish story in my life, because I don't care and I don't want to; I'm not saying everyone needs to be a fan of everything. It goes way past that. It's not "well, whatever you want, I'll be over here doing my thing," it's this attitude like we are an actual drag to have co-existing within the same fandom. You have to UNSUB? SERIOUSLY? So you don't accidentally read our HEADERS?

I've been doing this fandom thing for many years now (10 years! Jesus Christ!), and I feel like I've had a really successful fangirl career. I'm not the best writer in the fandom; I'm probably not even the tenth best writer in the fandom, but those other ten girls are so fucking AWESOME that they deserve their spots in the sun, and in most cases I'm, no shit, the biggest fan they have. But I'm proud of what I write, and I get some of the best feedback on the planet -- I'm consistently amazed at the time and the attention that my little cadre of readers invests, time and again, in what I write. I'm happy being the kind of writer I am -- I mean, if I weren't, it's not like I'm too stupid to figure out what kind of thing I should be writing to get more attention. If I needed universal validation, I wouldn't have spent the last month of my life writing a giant fucking het epic with an OFC; the story before that I wouldn't have shot John; I'd do a lot of things differently, if being in the mainstream of SGA fandom was my big goal. I love what I do and I wouldn't change it for the world, and I've never been less than humbled and amazed by the attention I do get. This is to say: I'm not on this Earth to win over the McShep brigade, and they could ignore me until the end of time and it really wouldn't phase me at all.

What leaves me shocked and hurt and angry isn't that there's a large segment of the fandom that doesn't care for/about what I do. It's that I genuinely feel like they want us gone -- like they feel that SGA fandom and all its associated pan-fandom space (like noticeboard, for example) is and should be and deserves to be the property of its largest contingent -- as if the fandom should be majority-rules and that those of us who are hanging around loving the fuck out of X/Q or A/C or O/P or whatever it is we're passionate about are basically in the way. We're a nuisance that they have no choice but to wait out, hoping that soon the fandom can go back to what they basically think it is anyway: the glee club for the John and Rodney Show.

And, you know, a huge part of me wants to do exactly that. The constant, steady, relentless drumbeat of OMG DON'T YOU JUST LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM ALL THE TIME?!!?11! is wearing enough as it is -- and I'm not even anti- the pairing. It's just like somebody trying to get you to eat strawberry shortcake seven times a day, every day of your life. Strawberry shortcake is *fine,* it's nice, I like it perfectly well, right up until the day when you hit that wall and all you can think is JESUS, SHUT THE FUCK UP, I'LL HURL ALL OVER THE FLOOR IF I SEE ONE MORE STRAWBERRY FUCKING SHORTCAKE. And that's sad, because it's a nice dessert, and McKay/Sheppard is a nice pairing (I have at least ten or twelve stories within it saved in my permanent collection of Bulletproof Fic that I read every time I need my comfort fix). Even if I had the power, I wouldn't want to stop people from digging on their favorite thing and I don't want to make them feel guilty for doing so, which is why I put 99% of the burden on myself. I avoid the places I know I can expect the especially shrill and piercing variety of squee that I know rubs me the wrong way. I choose what I click and don't click on. I tailor my Fandom Experience so that I stay as much as possible out of the situations that I know will set me off (obviously, I'm not successful every single day). And on the days when all of that feels impossible, like an umbrella in a hurricane, yeah, I consider severing my ties with this fandom.

But, you know, there's a lot that I'd miss, too. And I kind of like being the Loyal Opposition -- I think we're worth something, me and the rest of the fans who love our X/Q and our O/P and our other pairings that y'all think are weird and boring and squicky and totally violate the perfect purity of Rodney & John's eternal bliss. And basically, if we can slog along, hoping for our little moments, hoping this'll be the one day this week when one of our own will pop up with a story in our beloved pairing, patiently hitting our scroll button over and over and knowing that the charge we get will be even better for having had to wait for it and discover it -- then you can surely endure to have us around. And any suggestion that you can't endure it, or that you have to run and flee and hide from reminders that we exist -- well, that's just being a bad fucking winner.

There's such a thing as Carson fans in this fandom. There's such a thing as Teyla fans. There's such a thing as Elizabeth fans in this fandom. PLEASE BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY, WE HAVE ALL HAD A HARD YEAR OF IT. We've taken hit after hit, only to have people who write stories that suggest that John and Rodney live alone on a space station somewhere tell us that we're big whiners and anything short of being totally stoked about s4 is childish and unfair. If you can't possibly find it within yourself to be sympathetic allies, even though your guys still are and always will be the leads and you don't have to worry that you'll ever be in our position -- if you can't be our friends in this, please at least refrain from acting as if you resent the pieces of the fandom we've carved out for ourselves, and most of all refrain from suggesting that public SGA fandom space isn't large enough for all of us at once. Because we all know that you're not going anywhere. Nor should you have to.

Nor should we.

Comments

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

No, don't go! This is important, to be able to get our terminology straight.

I was never talking about just one fan; I was always talking about a certain *type* of fan, as typified by this one comment. If it really was an isolated person, I wouldn't let it bother me at all -- there's a weirdo in every crowd. It's not an isolated person. It's a particular -- I used the word "wing," but "type" will also do, of McShep OTP fanatics. And she used the term "McShep fanatics" as well, and frankly, I didn't read it at all as a change of subject.

Maybe it's not cool to speculate on people's motives, particularly strangers. I'm often tempted to do it, but I try to resist the urge. But -- I mean, look, this is a regular problem in discourse about groups. We're always trying to hammer out acceptable terminology for subsets, so that we can talk about "neocons" rather than *all* conservatives or *all* Republicans, so that we can talk about "fundamentalists" or "dominionists" or "right-wing evangelicals" rather than *all* Christians. And even those terms come under fire. Finding the right words is hard.

I think -- and you know I have all the love in the world for you, you're one of my very most favorite human beings in fandom -- I think you freaked out on this girl by assuming that when she said "McShep fanatics" she meant "all McShep fans, including you, which are definitionally equivalent to fanatics," when it seemed pretty clear to me that she was looking for a term to parallel "neocon Republicans" in that it specified a group whose behavior she finds unhealthy from the large mass of people who are, respectively, McShep shippers/Republican voters.

Like I said, I agree with you that it's better to resist the temptation to guess at other people's motives. But that was the only difference between her comment and my post; hers went to motive and mine didn't. Neither of us were talking about everyone who considers themselves a shipper, and I'm baffled that you took me at my word and yet assumed that she was "intentionally being insulting or completely blind to the impact of words" -- essentially a raving bitch or an idiot. And frankly, although I tend not to do so in public, I have a whole host of suspicions about the mental state of some of these people myself, and I'm pretty sure I'm right about at least some of them.

So basically, I feel like you're unfairly distinguishing her words from mine. If you're this mad at what she said, bring it back over here, because it's effectively what I said, too, and I don't want to be given a pass on it just because of our friendship.

[merryish.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'm giving you a pass because I adore you -- I mean, it's not like I wouldn't, but in this case I don't think I am. I think what you said, and how you said it, is substantially different from what Ezust said and how she said it.

You're right - you do talk about a "type" and a "wing". But that's very clear segmentation -- two kinds at least, the fans who be crazy and the fans who don't. I think you made your distinctions far better than Ezust did. "The McShepper fanatics" is easily inclusive enough to allow all of us to take offense, especially when followed by the term "McSheep", which she clearly found hilarious -- while "the outrageously self-centered, entitled, black-hole-of-need wing of McShep fandom" is a dividing line, and everything you say after that is clearly targeted to one side of that line.

And maybe that's a writing thing. I don't know if Ezust writes or not, but I know you do, and it shows. You start from one fan who has done a specific annoying thing, you widen it to a segment of fen who do similar annoying things, and then you speak directly about and to that segment. The fact that you're pissed off doesn't take away from the fact that you've aimed well -- you're unlikely to hit anybody you're not aiming at. That's why I was able to come in and read your post and feel *bad* for you, and not feel like you were pissed off at every fan who likes McShep.

Another difference is that your statements are in an LJ post -- not "to" anybody in particular -- while her comment was a direct reply to me, to a comment in which I clearly identified myself as both a John/Rodney fan and as sympathetic to the problem. You took twice the care, in your posted statement, than she did in a direct response.

Ezust aimed badly, caught me in her scattershot, and compounded the problem by making frankly nasty assumptions about why people might be into McShep. The lack of clarity combined with the snobbery is what differentiates her comments from yours.

Now granted, if you'd said it all just as badly as she did, I still would have blown it off because it was you -- because I would have figured you'd had a rotten day and were just being pissy, or whatever, or I would have known because we're friends that you didn't mean me -- and that's a pass I would give you that I wouldn't give someone I don't know. But I would still think you'd said it really badly! I just would have told you so in chat or something, later, when you felt better. If I remembered. =)

My point is, whether or not I would give you a pass for being vague and insulting isn't relevant, because you weren't! Or at the very least, you weren't both at the same time, and to me, which is the real crux of the issue.

[merryish.livejournal.com]

I forgot to say one of the most important things I wanted to say, too, which is -- I think not guessing at motivations is hugely important. We've all got our suspicions about why certain fans/types of fan are the way they are. But the whole reason I don't, and you don't, tend to bring them into public conversations/arguments is that in this context they're guaranteed to stir up bad feelings. It's a major, major distinction.

Thinking about it, though, I do think that I shouldn't have replied to Ezust no matter how much her comments and phrasing annoyed me, because the contents of your post implicitly made this thread a "safe space" for non-McSheppers. It's entirely possible that she felt she didn't have to be clear because she thought she was in safe space, and I didn't realize that until just now.

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the thought you've given all this, I really do. I didn't, and still don't, read "the McShep fanatics" as synonymous with "McShep shippers in toto" -- particularly given the context, where she was picking up a thread that I established with the specific meaning you identified. Given that, I think you struck like the hammer of God on a girl who wasn't doing anything more offensive than agreeing to my profanity-laden, unleashed-id rant. I get that you see a marked difference that isn't apparent to me, so I obviously don't have much choice but to leave it to your discretion whether you leave things as they are between you and Ezust or not. You're a grown person, and moreover, a good person, so whatever you do, I know will be what seems right to you -- as much as I can ask of anybody.