walkingshadow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
walkingshadow) wrote2009-12-30 02:21 pm
walkingshadow) wrote2009-12-30 02:21 pm
precious metals, heirlooms, fur, tobacco products
My luggage has finally caught up to me! It only took three days! I'm going to pretend that I traveled via wormhole instead of jet plane so I can blame time dilation, because that's so much cooler and less ragey than human apathy and incompetence.
And now, we meme:
Name a fandom or a fannish topic and I will share my unpopular fandom opinions on the matter. Or any opinion, because I have lots of those and don't always know which ones are unpopular or not.
Unpopular fandom opinions, ahoy! Here, I'll start: Patrick Stump? Totally overrated! THERE, I SAID IT. Okay, now you go.
And now, we meme:
Name a fandom or a fannish topic and I will share my unpopular fandom opinions on the matter. Or any opinion, because I have lots of those and don't always know which ones are unpopular or not.
Unpopular fandom opinions, ahoy! Here, I'll start: Patrick Stump? Totally overrated! THERE, I SAID IT. Okay, now you go.
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How about popslash? are there any popslash opinion wars still lurking? (probably. where there's Justin, there's DRAMA-RAMA.) Or Harry Potter?
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Ohh, popslash. *nostalgic sigh* I was lucky (unlucky?) enough to get into popslash post-hiatus, after the great shipper wars had raged through the fandom (did popslash actually INVENT the shipper war, or is the light shining through the holes in my fannish knowledge again?), and I've been way out of popslash since 2004-ish. BUT, that was around the same time that a certain faction of fandom went through that phase where they blamed Justin for all of *NSYNC's woes, and especially for the sabotage of JC's solo career, which was just LOLLL. Oh, and I hated Justified. I'm still mystified that it catapulted him into the stratosphere the way it did. I liked SexyBack much better. And I like his acting. I really think it was a good thing that *NSYNC never got back together and recorded another album, and I DO think the rest of them were holding Justin back.
Oh, I do remember being totally at odds with fanon!JC: I tend to come at fandoms backwards, through fic first and canon second, and JC was constantly being written as this feminine, flighty, delicate flower, so I was SHOCKED when I finally watched a bunch of footage that showed him to be, you know, a funny, goofy, strong-spoken, muscular yet devastatingly pretty man in his late twenties. WTF!
ARE there any popslash opinion wars still lurking??
Unpopular Harry Potter opinions! Um. Well, I slowly grew to absolutely LOATHE Dumbledore, but I think that's actually a relatively popular fandom opinion. I'm actively squicked by Harry/Snape fic, regardless of age or power dynamics. I think Ginny is awesome and gets a totally raw deal both in the books and in fic. I think Harry and Luna should have ended up going off and being completely fucking insane with each other for company. My super-sekrit OTP was Harry/Sirius. I thought mistful's works were hugely self-indulgent and overrated. And I hated the Shoebox Project. :-p
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JC, for real. FOR REAL.
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I have no idea if there are still popslash opinion wars. Maybe Justin's turn as the co-founder of Facebook will bring out the haters. (Justin's presence actually makes me want to see this, in spite of the fact that it is written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher, two men whose recent work has moved me from Camp I Don't Like You Much to Camp I Really Hate You And I Wish You Would Shut Up Forever. Maybe that qualifies as an unpopular fannish opinion.) But thank you so much for that look back at fanon vs. canon JC, which ahahaha, YES.
I think Harry and Luna should have ended up going off and being completely fucking insane with each other for company.
based on my own reading of the books, I think this is an *excellent* idea.
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I am likewise intrigued by Justin's presence in that project. Otherwise, as you say, it sounds basically horrific. I had to look up David Fincher, so I have no idea what the fannish opinion about him would be; but the tide has totally swung against Aaron Sorkin since the trainwreck that was Studio 60.
I haven't thought about fanon!JC in a long time, but he was hilarious!
In both the books and the movies it always struck me how much Harry really liked Luna, she just seemed to delight him, and he loved talking to her and spending time with her. I think she was one of my favorite characters; she was crazy, but she was so charming, and she was always right about everything!
I'm going to trust you to know who this is ;)
(Anonymous) 2010-01-08 07:35 am (UTC)(link)Re: I'm going to trust you to know who this is ;)
Ahahah, you were one of like TWO people that I personally knew who liked Studio 60, even up to the bitter, bitter end, and I think we agreed at the time to agree to disagree! Because I adore those leads too (personally I like Sarah Paulson but dislike Amanda Peet and her monotone and completely flat affect) but ended up absolutely loathing their characters, the bad pacing, the mind-bogglingly unfunny sketch humor, the confluence of all of Sorkin's problematic portrayals of women and people of color, his vengeful and petulant allegorical tale, and the smug, contemptuous tone in which he told it. Sports Night and The West Wing (esp. the first two seasons) have a lot of their own problems (many of which I was blind to the first time around), but if it's fast talking and interpersonal drama you're after, they are seriously so much better.
P.S. If you want an account on Dreamwidth (for name-squatting, commenting, setting up house, idk) I have an invite code with your name on it. Also you can always use OpenID.
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When I saw the meme, I thought crap, I don't remember what fandoms we have in common anymore! Then I remembered that I could just go look at what was bolded in your interests list.
Can I pick more than one? If I can't... I'm still all into Harry Potter, but I am so out of touch with fandom on that one... I've never been all that in touch with Numb3rs fandom, much as I love the show... I think I am still familiar enough with Stargate Atlantis, or at least the fandom shouldn't have changed that much since I took a brief tour through it... so SGA!
I have this habit of loving stuff, but not really being in the fandom. Or discovering there is all this fandom stuff after the fact. Or not keeping up with it. Or... well, you get the idea.
Edit: Somehow, I missed seeing House was bolded. Still, not all that familiar with the fandom part. Also, there is other stuff that is not bolded, but I also love. Hmmm, maybe I should update my interests. I am always discovering things that I have left off.
Um...I'm done rambling now?
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You can pick as many as you want! I know what you mean about loving a fandom but not really being in a fandom. My primary mode of fannish engagement has always been fic reading rather than meta analysis and community engagement, and my inclination is still to lurk on the fringes of fandom and way below the radar—habits I am trying to break!
Harry Potter: I'm way out of touch on this one, especially considering how ENORMOUS the fandom is, and how fractious. That said, let me quote what I told
SGA: Ahahahah, listen, I really never liked Rodney McKay. All of fandom seemed to intimately identify with him and absolutely adore him, but I didn't identify with him at all, and I hated what a smug, snobbish, misogynist asshole he was to everyone, all the time. Ditto for Carson Beckett. Also I never warmed up to David Hewlett. Hated Elizabeth, partly because they consistently wrote her character into the ground, but also because I cannot stand Tori Higgenson's acting choices or speech patterns. In the beginning I shipped John/Rodney pretty much exclusively, but by the time I stopped watching the show (mid-third season?) I'd completely reversed direction and was all about John/Ronon. ♥ RONON ♥.
ALSO John Sheppard is a smart guy, but he is not a genius, let alone a math prodigy (though I am ttly okay with reading mathporn fic about him, because I am easy). ALSO ALSO I read a thousand stories that highlighted how JOHN KILLED SIXTY GENII SOLDIERS IN A SINGLE BLOW ZOMG, and then I actually watched The Storm/The Eye and saw that it was a distant, impersonal kill, even more distant and impersonal than, oh, bombing targets from a fighter jet would be, and the imagined psychological impact on John was waaay overblown (though I'm pretty easy for that sort of thing too, I won't lie). Luckily I stopped watching the show before I had to have an opinion on Keller. I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can remember!
I was never in Numb3rs fandom (I read a couple of stories and I watch the show on-and-off, but that's it), and I wasn't in House fandom long enough to get a sense of the fannish zeitgeist, let alone form oppositional opinions to it. What about you?
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House... I have no idea. I know that they've paired every character with House, and I know they called the original three (Cameron, Chase, and Foreman) the ducklings (I have no idea why, but I kind of like it... but then I think ducklings are cute... that's probably why I like it). I don't know enough, really.
Obviously, from the icon I used above, I like Rodney, but that has to do more with his socially awkward moments. I didn't like him at first, when he was first on SG-1, but then they kept showing more social awkwardness on Atlantis and... I just really like socially awkward, I guess. I feel bad for Ronan and Teyla. They got the short end of the stick in canon, and seem to get it as well in fandom, from what I've seen. Sadly, my few poor attempts at SGA fiction also don't do much with them, so I guess I'm just perpetuating what I deplore. Sad.
Bwhahaha! I know what you mean about John! It so funny how they turn him into a genius. Did you ever see any John/Atlantis fic? I have no idea what is actually in them, but I am super amused at the idea of pairing John with the city of Atlantis. I am a twisted person, or too easily amused. I love Radek Zelenka myself, a whole lot. I think he usually gets paired with Rodney in fic, which I've never determined whether that made sense or not.
Ah, I didn't know fandom started loathing Dumbledore. I have learned something new! I remember several years ago there seemed to be a lot of fic making Draco a Veela (and often times making Harry his mate) which I always thought was funny, and poked fun at a few times. Twincest horrifies me, but then I think there is only a small part of fandom that is all for it. I have no idea what is big now. Actually, as you pointed out, it is a huge fandom, so there is probably a lot of things that are big in the fandom.
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When I was watching House, I read House/Wilson almost exclusively, and I read a lot of it, but during a relatively short period of time (first two seasons only). I think it was Wilson who once called House's team collectively "the ducklings" and it stuck, the way things often stick in fandom.
See, and I can't stand watching social awkwardness, I have an enormous embarrassment squick. *shudders* Ronon and Teyla were AWESOME, and their relatively small presence in canon and meta and fanworks was a constant source of discussion in the corner of SGA fandom I read regularly, and touched off more than one heated and far-reaching debate about fandom's problematic relationship with actors and characters of color. I liked Radek too, but I usually hated the way he was turned into a caricature in fic.
John/Atlantis is one of my favorite tropes! It comes out of the idea that 1) there's a mental component to the technology, and 2) John has (canonically) the greatest human manifestation of the Ancient gene and therefore (fanonically?) the strongest connection to the technology; and after that, it's not such a big stretch to imagine that perhaps that connection goes both ways, and then you have an entire city with at least some degree of awareness/responsiveness/personality, and then you have fic about John's discovery and engagement with it and vice-versa! I have a few bookmarked here on my delicious (http://delicious.com/walkingshadow/john%2Fatlantis) if you're interested; I particularly recommend Home (http://www.livejournal.com/community/sga_flashfic/113880.html) and Learning to Breathe (http://www.trickster.org/speranza/cesper/Breathe.html).
Yeah, there's a bunch of us that sees Dumbledore as this sinister Machiavellian figure with ambiguous motivations and dubious ethics and a tendency to treat people like chess pieces instead of like people. I don't know how big that faction actually is, but it's definitely out there, and it's explored in a lot of fic to varying degrees.
There's TONS of veela!Draco fic (I don't like any of it) and campy, fabulous leatherpants!Draco fic (I can take it or leave it depending on the story). The fandom was and is huge, huge enough to support enormous volumes of fic in lots of pairings, and tons of gen as well.