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i love A, so I must hate B!: zero sum character love
One of the things I love the very best about my experiences in due South fandom so far -- and I realize I've said this about thirty million things to date, but that's because they're all TRUE -- is how little sense of a division between fans of different characters. Especially between two characters in your main pairing.
I mean, okay, I am speaking from the position of someone who was very much a Clark fan during the first two and a half seasons of Smallville. This was not so bad at first, but it got more and more painful as time went on -- there were actually some episodes I went away from going "Oh my god, I love Clark beyond WORDS!" and I would go online to find half my friends list talking about how they wanted to gouge his heart out with a spork. And, you know, I do believe in the theory of "I am the boss of my own fannish experience; I am in charge of keeping my joy" but it still kind of sucked, because to keep my happy place, I basically had to filter my flist hardcore -- there were good writers and cool people I just couldn't read because it made me cringe so much. (As a side note, I really don't get the point of having an OTP where you utterly despise one of the characters. This is especially in true in fandoms where there is less of a focus on one specific pairing than there is either dS or especially SV.)
Some of those people, actually, were ones who drifted into dS about the same time or shortly after me. So I spent the first little while eyeing them all and getting paranoid that the same thing was going to happen here -- that I'd turn around and suddenly be reading about what an evil horrible worthless bitch Fraser is and lists of all the ways he's failed and totally doesn't deserve Ray and should be, like, whipped and forced to perpetuate lots of grovelfic.
I would guess most F/K shippers would name Kowalski as their favorite of the two characters, but I think most of them still *like* both of them. Or, at least, the ones I've been exposed to mostly do. I mean, when Estrella threatens to poke Fraser's eye out with a stick, she's doing it because she can't make him fuck, not because she thinks he actually deserves that for his canon behavior.
Anyway. I don't know if this is more something about the fandom or just me being more specific and careful about what I expose myself to these days, but the lack of all this makes very very happy. Friends list, I looooooove you!
I mean, okay, I am speaking from the position of someone who was very much a Clark fan during the first two and a half seasons of Smallville. This was not so bad at first, but it got more and more painful as time went on -- there were actually some episodes I went away from going "Oh my god, I love Clark beyond WORDS!" and I would go online to find half my friends list talking about how they wanted to gouge his heart out with a spork. And, you know, I do believe in the theory of "I am the boss of my own fannish experience; I am in charge of keeping my joy" but it still kind of sucked, because to keep my happy place, I basically had to filter my flist hardcore -- there were good writers and cool people I just couldn't read because it made me cringe so much. (As a side note, I really don't get the point of having an OTP where you utterly despise one of the characters. This is especially in true in fandoms where there is less of a focus on one specific pairing than there is either dS or especially SV.)
Some of those people, actually, were ones who drifted into dS about the same time or shortly after me. So I spent the first little while eyeing them all and getting paranoid that the same thing was going to happen here -- that I'd turn around and suddenly be reading about what an evil horrible worthless bitch Fraser is and lists of all the ways he's failed and totally doesn't deserve Ray and should be, like, whipped and forced to perpetuate lots of grovelfic.
I would guess most F/K shippers would name Kowalski as their favorite of the two characters, but I think most of them still *like* both of them. Or, at least, the ones I've been exposed to mostly do. I mean, when Estrella threatens to poke Fraser's eye out with a stick, she's doing it because she can't make him fuck, not because she thinks he actually deserves that for his canon behavior.
Anyway. I don't know if this is more something about the fandom or just me being more specific and careful about what I expose myself to these days, but the lack of all this makes very very happy. Friends list, I looooooove you!
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OH MY GOSH YES. I know!1! Actually I prolly know even better'n you by now, because S4!Clark is apparently the EVILEST THING EVER OMG (instead of being incredibly cute and adorable and cracktastic, which is my opinion wot nobody shares) and S4!Lex is a w00bie who is only turning evil because Clark is such an asshole (instead of being an incredibly funny rich bald gay dude) an' an' an'.
So nowadays whenever my flist does that I just gouge it with a spork. And then it is happy place again. :D
Also I am happy that your dS experience is so happy and fluffy and nice, because when I last dipped a toe in the fandom I withdrew it with my toe all RED AND BURNY from the Ray Wars. And I think people still think Vecchio is a jerk, because, well, he is. Not to mention he is not as hot as Kowalski. But it is none of it as bad as it used to be, which is a blessing to be grateful for.
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Also, I silently judge people who dislike Vecchio. I think a lot of people do, actually. There are probably people who are like "Oh, yeah, and Vecchio and Fraser had a great friendship and stuff" and are really thinking "Vecchio SUCKS! Give me my KOwalski so I can slash!"
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