WIP Big Bang and writing things

[tielan]

I know that hardly anyone reads this journal anymore, and I'm pretty sure that those of you that don't aren't here for the fic.

But wipbigbang is taking sign-ups.

I was thinking about doing it for "The Right Hand Knows Not" which is the sequel to the Avengers fic "Give A Girl A Moment" but that's only at 20K right now, and I'm not going to get through the 80K of plot I have left in 10 weeks with my current life schedule.

There are other options: "The Gathering Clouds" (Avengers: Psy-Changeling, probably 40K), "Anchor & Anchorage" (Pacific Rim: Mako/Raleigh), "Scar Tissue" (Pacific Rim: Yancy survives but he and Raleigh are no longer Drift-compatible), and - to start something completely new - "Watch The Queen Conquer" (Pacific Rim: the female characters).

I'm just...I'm in the frame of mind that questions why I write female characters who aren't "acceptable" to the rest of fandom. Why bother when my interests don't align with everyone else? I've been told to write fic for the characters I love even when no-one else likes them because I'll make people like them. And I do. But I can't make my readers fannish about them, because things that I like in my female characters are never the things that other people like in their female characters and there's no amount of fic that can change a person's taste in tropes.

I'm burning out in much the same way that I did in SGA; only my burn-out time is growing shorter. And lately, I'm feeling like I'm "that fan" - the one that people are always nice to, but carefully avoid as much as possible: "Don't encourage her, dear, she might actually want to interact with you."

Comments

[elanya]

I know exactly how you feel about being excited about parts of fandom (or even whole fandoms) that other folks aren't into. I pretty much have to just live with the fact that like.... 80% of the stuff I want to write about is going to have a limited, or even no, audience. It can be a real drag, and it does tend to be one of the reasons why I don't actually produce that much >.>

[thothmes]

I read. I always read. I just haven't had much to say of late.

When you were writing for SG-1 and when you were working on that original fic in a Chinese setting, I loved your strong female characters. I don't think it's you, so much as the fact that the Marvel Universe is such a testosterone driven one, and I think that many of the fans are attracted by that very traditional trope-bound view of the world. You, your take on the world have a beauty that is worth sharing, even if others don't fully appreciate. Yet.

[tielan]

*hugs*

I write in megafandoms most of the time, so I do have an audience. It's still a bit depressing to find nobody interested in writing my favourite characters, and to look at stories that I know aren't written as well (or are written very OOC) and see how many people seem to like them in contrast to my own.

And I think I produce so much because I have so many ideas in my head and if I didn't get them out, I'd go mad.

[tielan]

Thank you.

It still feels very much like screaming into the void, unappreciated, though.

[forestgreen]

Thanks for pointing to the wipbigbang. It sounds really interesting and I might like to join in, even if I don't know for which story.

I must confess that I'm guilty of feeling a bit meh about female characters in most of the fandoms I've been in. The two exceptions the readily come to mind are Buffy and Farscape, but Buffy and Willow as well as Aeryn Sun were such strong, interesting characters in the source material that I already loved them when I got into the fandom. They were main characters; the story was also about them. I don't know, for me, it made all the difference, I tend to ignore sidekicks for the most part (be it male or female).

I get into fandoms when the main characters of the source material manage to fascinate me, which means that by the time, I decide to tread new waters I'm already in love with the main character or I don't bother with the fandom at all. That means that more often than not, my fandom loves are male.

Thus, I tend to get my fix for strong female characters by genderbending my favorite male characters, and imagining what their lives -- all other things being equal -- would have been liked if they'd been born a female. I think I've written a gender-bending story for almost every fandom I've been active in.

Looking at it, it's not very rational :(

[beatrice_otter]

I'm not into Pacific Rim so I haven't read most of your recent output, but I hope you don't get burnt out on fandom in general because I love reading your stuff.

[tielan]

I'm not fannishly interested in a show or movie if it doesn't have a female character that I like in it. It's that simple. If she happens to be a sidekick, then that's still the female character I like, whether or not 'other people' (read: showrunners, producers, other fans) think that they're worthy of attention. But then, I tend to like archetype characters which aren't the archetype characters designated 'main' (which usually means male and/or white).

Obviously, that limits both what I'm going to watch and the people I'm going to interact with, since fandom tends male and white and prefers to write m/m relationships, and I tend female and non-white and f/m.

I'd rather take the female characters of canon and roleswap them into major roles than genderbend - eg. an all-female Avengers team that comprises of Peggy Carter, Sif (with Sigyn in the Loki role), Betty Ross (or Jennifer Walters), Natasha Romanoff, Pepper Potts, and Maria Hill as Director of SHIELD. Partly because this then emphasises the ways that female characters can be used (ie. just like the male ones - OMG!), and it puts the focus on canonical females rather than the canonical male ones.

eta: Sorry, reading through, I just wanted to reassure you that the "just like the male ones - OMG" comment wasn't directed at you. I've just encountered too many people who couldn't imagine what to do with a female character - don't they need, like, a special license to write them or something?

[tielan]

I think I'm burning out on lots of levels all at once, actually - spiritual, personal, work, and fannish.

Thanks, though. *hugs*

[beatrice_otter]

As a pastor, I'd say the spiritual burnout is the most important to deal with. Do you have any practices that you can use to help yourself recharge spiritually? Any people who can help you?

[skieswideopen]

It's hard not being part of a fannish minority. Definitely.

I don't really read much fic in either Avengers or Pacific Rim, but those all sound like awesome ideas.

[everbright]

Well, you helped me become fannish about Mako. I liked her, loved her! coming out of the movie, but fandom helped me articulate why to others, and opened up that door in your head that starts spinning stories in the shower.

BUT, it's perfectly legit to just feel like you need to not invest as much in fandom. Self-care is important. :)

[forestgreen]

Don't worry, since I happen to like female characters, too, I didn't feel as if the comment was directed at me. I found your post in general thought provoking, for it made me think about my favorite characters, the ones I like to read and write about and where they fall in the gender spectrum. It's not something I had given much conscious thought before, and I was surprised by the fact that the split is about 80/20 in favor of males characters. My comment was more like my own meta rambling, trying to figure out for myself why the split was so uneven, since I do like female characters.

Maybe another factor that plays a role for me is the porn part of things. I like reading the sexual part of slash, not just the emotional interactions and the character growth, but also the sex itself. I'd read het NC17, too, but not often. And femslash doesn't do much for me. Maybe that influences my choices. I don't know.

For the record, I remember a post, which I think was by you, where you talked about a movie you'd like to see with Natasha, Peggy and Maria and some evil female characters and I thought to myself, I'd watch the hell out of that. So, yeah, today's media should learn to use female characters better.

[tielan]

Regarding influence, I suspect it's easier for most people to identify with male characters on several levels - there's a bigger variety of characters for starters, there aren't the cultural or sexual issues that come attached to being female or non-white (both of which are more easily identifiable than sexual orientation/who they're attracted to, and so get a more immediate response), and we're trained by society to empathise with men (and white men in particular) through the prevalence of white male characters as the heroes of our storytelling.

I just seem to have missed that induction somewhere along the line.