Meandering Musings

So I'm reading Peter Cline's 14

Amazon blurb:

There are some odd things about Nate’s new apartment.

Of course, he has other things on his mind. He hates his job. He has no money in the bank. No girlfriend. No plans for the future. So while his new home isn’t perfect, it’s livable. The rent is low, the property managers are friendly, and the odd little mysteries don’t nag at him too much. At least, not until he meets Mandy, his neighbor across the hall, and notices something unusual about her apartment. And Xela’s apartment. And Tim’s. And Veek’s.

Because every room in this old Los Angeles brownstone has a mystery or two. Mysteries that stretch back over a hundred years. Some of them are in plain sight. Some are behind locked doors. And all together these mysteries could mean the end of Nate and his friends.

Or the end of everything...

The blurb for the book made me think it would be a haunted apartment building story -- and it may yet be -- but as I'm reading it, it's making me think... I don't know... aliens?  Either that, or the place is owned by Wolfram and Hart...

Huh.

Guess I'll see. (Mulder and Scully really should be included, though.  This sort of thing was right up their alley. ;)

ETA (Not Quite Half Way Through):  It's not coming off like a haunted house story.  It actually reminds me of LOST.  Several characters of different ages and types living in the building, all of whom are coming off as likable losers (part of the allure of the apartment building is the incredibly low rent) and all of whom are working together to figure out the weirdness. 

Thus far, it's been just weirdness.  Nothing scary,  just strange, mysterious, and odd. 

A friend of mine sent a link to an article today where David Duchovny talks about their working on another X-Files movie script.

I was not pleased. I had seen an article about it the other day and had hoped that if I ignored it hard enough, it would go away. My reaction was to shake my head and go no, no, or for the love of-- NO! Please, Chris Carter, I'm begging. Let it go!

Look, I loved the X-Files. I was hard core. I watched every episode. I taped them. I went to after episode chats. I participated in the fandom. I wrote fanfic. I participated in Virtual Season 8 and Virtual Season 9. Joined Scully_fic. I saw both movies, bought DVDs, and read every tie in novel. Hell, I watched The Lone Gunman series (and Harsh Realm)... and I'm begging, PLEASE DON'T DO ANOTHER MOVIE! Let my beloved old fandom not be bastardized out of greed. M'kay?

I got a good ending (Requiem) and a less good ending (whatever was the name of the final episode of the tv series). I even got a movie that warmed over the old coals, but it did at least give some relationship stuff that I didn't hate (actually, CC never bastardized the relationship. He was good on that score). But... enough is enough. Mulder and Scully were wonderful. Now, leave them the hell alone!

Which is going to bring me to the subject of reboots. I'm not really going to discuss the Non-Joss/Non-TV Series "Buffy" reboot because I've said my fill about that elsewhere (gist: I don't see the point of a reboot when nothing from the TV series can be used. That effectively eliminates 99% of Buffy's origin story, most of the mythology, her sidekicks, her villains, and her love interests. Try rebooting Superman without Lex Luthor, Lois Lane, Lana Lang, The Daily Planet, the Fortress of Solitude, Smallville, or Metropolis. It's not so easy. Sure you've got a baby in an asteroid, but what else that's recognizable?) Instead I was thinking about reboots that worked and perhaps why they worked.

The Battlestar Gallactica reboot worked. I'm mumbledy-mumble years old, and I was a fan of the original BSG... when I was in first or second grade! (I remember us playing BSG on the monkey bars after the regular argument over who could be Athena... as she was the only female pilot on the show.) Let's examine that for a moment. I'm probably in the youngest age bracket of folks who could remember the original series and I'm on the upper end of the target demographic. I could barely remember the original series and my memory amounted to basically "Cylons destroyed the planets, there was a lot of Greek stuff, Starbuck was cute, and they were in search of Earth". Anyone younger than myself wouldn't remember the series at all. Anyone more than a few years older than myself probably didn't watch, because the original was a kid's show. This allowed the reboot to adopt the basic outline from the original but not a whole heck of a lot else. It wasn't necessary. The elementary schoolers that watched the original were all well into adulthood with barely any memories of the original beyond the big stuff (cylons! Destroyed planets! Greek names. Starbuck and Apollo.) Even then, they kept many of the basics. Adama was the Admiral. Apollo was Adama's 'good guy' son. Starbuck was a snarky, cynical bad-ass who smoked cigars and played poker (even if in the original Starbuck was a guy, the characteristics were true to the original Starbuck... just now on a female rather than a male... and there was a great deal of wank about that fact when it was first announced. But, remembering the playground days when we had to argue over who could 'be' Athena, I was pleased that there would be more than one female pilot now). Oh, and Baltar was kind of crazy and in cahoots with the Cylons.

So, the primary character basics from the original were there in a recognizable fashion in the reboot. Plus, as a pacifier to the hard core fen (which I gather actually existed), they offered one of the orignal leads, Richard Hatch, a featured role in the remake in the part of Zarek.

So basically, they had a 25+ year old franchise whose original audience had largely been in elementary school children that only remembered the bare outline of the series and who are adults rather than kids now anyway... and the original fairly cool premise with a handfull of characters being used in roughly the same way as they were in the orignal (at least through the mini-series). That gave a lot of lattitude for reboot. Although, most of the differences from the original to the miniseries weren't in story so much as in execution.

The story of the reboot miniseries -- the planets were destroyed, Adama had the only remaining Battlestar, (the other remaining Battlestar showing up later in both series), Baltar as the sell-out to the Cylons, Apollo and Starbuck as the featured favorite fighter pilots on the front lines, and the ultimate, scary decision to try to find the lost colony -- Earth ... was all the same, just instead of pure cheese it was given a far more gritty, adult treatment. It basically took the original concept and characters, gave it an update and superior writing, and added just a couple of twists (there was no Roslin in the original. Boomer was a guy and Athena was just a female pilot and not a cylon, cylons were easily spotted what with their being metal and all). It was both recognizable (to folks who only barely remembered the first with affection from their childhoods) and better. Because of that, it was a reboot that worked.

The other reboot that worked is the recent Trek reboot. Yes, the reboot is spiffy. And it had the JJ Abrams cult cred as he's a sci-fi guru in his own right. Gene Roddenberry couldn't be offended as he died several years ago. Majel Barret, his widow, gave the reboot her go-ahead before she died. The original cast are now far beyond their sci-fi action hero stages (and a few of them have passed away), and even then the reboot still called Leonard Nimoy back into active duty and gave him a significant role... his original role. He was still Spock.

And it's hard to miss that the Trek reboot delivered a significant dose of nostalgia in a fun way. It gave the bang and glitz and hotties for a new generation, while delighting fans by giving us the relationships and the notes we loved. I remember cracking up at the away mission when it was Kirk, Sulu... and a Red Shirt. And of course the red shirt immediately died! Loved that. People in the audience got the shout-out, were in on the joke, and enjoyed that nod to Trek history. People enjoyed the heck out of Sulu announcing that he could fence, then his kicking ass fencing. Keith Urban's Bones characterization was one big ol' hommage to DeForest Kelly. It was a treat. That was McCoy almost exactly as we knew him... only younger and hotter. But, still, it was recognizably him. And Scottie! Uhura! Chekov! Even Pike! (in a wheelchair no less). And of course, we finally got to see Kirk sabotage the Kobayashi Maru. (Spock losing his shit over it was a bonus!)

So much of the Trek Reboot was simply about re-introducing us to the old characters we loved in younger form, and then showing us that these were still the characters we loved. And the relationships we loved. They didn't skimp on the Kirk/Spock (or the Kirk/McCoy). If you're going to do TOS Trek, you have to honor those relationships. It wasn't just that Kirk was recognizably the same character. It wasn't that we had not one but two Spocks. It was that the friendship of Kirk/Spock was paramount. Hell, the friendship of the entire crew was paramount. The joy of the reboot was getting the old gang back together and proving to us, that despite the younger faces and bods... they were still the old gang. And we still got Spock, original version showing us why we loved the original version all along.

It was also pretty brilliant of Abrams that he allowed the original timeline to stand undisturbed, telling us -- quite literally -- this is an alternate timeline. The Trek Reboot worked because it used the relationships of the original and gave it its own different place... and made it fun. Somewhere in my LJ is my review of the Trek reboot when it came out and I remember saying something along the lines of it delivered what it had to -- it gave us the characters we loved and showed us why we loved them all over again.

I think most reboots that work tend to be ones that have enough age to them that there's nostalgia supporting them. Nostalgia (helpful if perhaps our memories have clouded with time) and the relationships and characters we love in the way that we love them.

Give me another fifteen years and I may be all for an X-Files reboot (still, please no continuation. The series had a 10+ year run. They exhausted the material.) But it really just hurt to watch the last X-Files movie because, though I could believe the way that things had changed in the story, that wasn't really the Mulder/Scully I loved. The Mulder/Scully I loved were bullheaded rogue FBI agents not people in a mid-life identity crisis having retired and wondering what to do with their lives.

I liked the way that the series ended -- yes, even the out-of-gas ending of the series finale, because it left Mulder and Scully fighting the good fight... together. That's what I wanted. That's the way I like to remember them -- so Chris Carter, quit screwing them up by bringing them back! Maybe in fifteen years I'll feel differently and someone can do a reboot and I'll squee, but for the time being, I like my originals just the way they were.

(And honestly, what's the point in rebooting the Kristie Swanson movie when it was the Fox and Mutant Enemy Buffy characters and stories that we loved? What's next, Harry Potter sans Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Voldemort, Snape, or Hogwarts and without the blessing of JK Rowling?)

A friend of mine sent a link to an article today where David Duchovny talks about their working on another X-Files movie script.

I was not pleased. I had seen an article about it the other day and had hoped that if I ignored it hard enough, it would go away. My reaction was to shake my head and go no, no, or for the love of-- NO! Please, Chris Carter, I'm begging. Let it go!

Look, I loved the X-Files. I was hard core. I watched every episode. I taped them. I went to after episode chats. I participated in the fandom. I wrote fanfic. I participated in Virtual Season 8 and Virtual Season 9. Joined Scully_fic. I saw both movies, bought DVDs, and read every tie in novel. Hell, I watched The Lone Gunman series (and Harsh Realm)... and I'm begging, PLEASE DON'T DO ANOTHER MOVIE! Let my beloved old fandom not be bastardized out of greed. M'kay?

I got a good ending (Requiem) and a less good ending (whatever was the name of the final episode of the tv series). I even got a movie that warmed over the old coals, but it did at least give some relationship stuff that I didn't hate (actually, CC never bastardized the relationship. He was good on that score). But... enough is enough. Mulder and Scully were wonderful. Now, leave them the hell alone!

Which is going to bring me to the subject of reboots. I'm not really going to discuss the Non-Joss/Non-TV Series "Buffy" reboot because I've said my fill about that elsewhere (gist: I don't see the point of a reboot when nothing from the TV series can be used. That effectively eliminates 99% of Buffy's origin story, most of the mythology, her sidekicks, her villains, and her love interests. Try rebooting Superman without Lex Luthor, Lois Lane, Lana Lang, The Daily Planet, the Fortress of Solitude, Smallville, or Metropolis. It's not so easy. Sure you've got a baby in an asteroid, but what else that's recognizable?) Instead I was thinking about reboots that worked and perhaps why they worked.

The Battlestar Gallactica reboot worked. I'm mumbledy-mumble years old, and I was a fan of the original BSG... when I was in first or second grade! (I remember us playing BSG on the monkey bars after the regular argument over who could be Athena... as she was the only female pilot on the show.) Let's examine that for a moment. I'm probably in the youngest age bracket of folks who could remember the original series and I'm on the upper end of the target demographic. I could barely remember the original series and my memory amounted to basically "Cylons destroyed the planets, there was a lot of Greek stuff, Starbuck was cute, and they were in search of Earth". Anyone younger than myself wouldn't remember the series at all. Anyone more than a few years older than myself probably didn't watch, because the original was a kid's show. This allowed the reboot to adopt the basic outline from the original but not a whole heck of a lot else. It wasn't necessary. The elementary schoolers that watched the original were all well into adulthood with barely any memories of the original beyond the big stuff (cylons! Destroyed planets! Greek names. Starbuck and Apollo.) Even then, they kept many of the basics. Adama was the Admiral. Apollo was Adama's 'good guy' son. Starbuck was a snarky, cynical bad-ass who smoked cigars and played poker (even if in the original Starbuck was a guy, the characteristics were true to the original Starbuck... just now on a female rather than a male... and there was a great deal of wank about that fact when it was first announced. But, remembering the playground days when we had to argue over who could 'be' Athena, I was pleased that there would be more than one female pilot now). Oh, and Baltar was kind of crazy and in cahoots with the Cylons.

So, the primary character basics from the original were there in a recognizable fashion in the reboot. Plus, as a pacifier to the hard core fen (which I gather actually existed), they offered one of the orignal leads, Richard Hatch, a featured role in the remake in the part of Zarek.

So basically, they had a 25+ year old franchise whose original audience had largely been in elementary school children that only remembered the bare outline of the series and who are adults rather than kids now anyway... and the original fairly cool premise with a handfull of characters being used in roughly the same way as they were in the orignal (at least through the mini-series). That gave a lot of lattitude for reboot. Although, most of the differences from the original to the miniseries weren't in story so much as in execution.

The story of the reboot miniseries -- the planets were destroyed, Adama had the only remaining Battlestar, (the other remaining Battlestar showing up later in both series), Baltar as the sell-out to the Cylons, Apollo and Starbuck as the featured favorite fighter pilots on the front lines, and the ultimate, scary decision to try to find the lost colony -- Earth ... was all the same, just instead of pure cheese it was given a far more gritty, adult treatment. It basically took the original concept and characters, gave it an update and superior writing, and added just a couple of twists (there was no Roslin in the original. Boomer was a guy and Athena was just a female pilot and not a cylon, cylons were easily spotted what with their being metal and all). It was both recognizable (to folks who only barely remembered the first with affection from their childhoods) and better. Because of that, it was a reboot that worked.

The other reboot that worked is the recent Trek reboot. Yes, the reboot is spiffy. And it had the JJ Abrams cult cred as he's a sci-fi guru in his own right. Gene Roddenberry couldn't be offended as he died several years ago. Majel Barret, his widow, gave the reboot her go-ahead before she died. The original cast are now far beyond their sci-fi action hero stages (and a few of them have passed away), and even then the reboot still called Leonard Nimoy back into active duty and gave him a significant role... his original role. He was still Spock.

And it's hard to miss that the Trek reboot delivered a significant dose of nostalgia in a fun way. It gave the bang and glitz and hotties for a new generation, while delighting fans by giving us the relationships and the notes we loved. I remember cracking up at the away mission when it was Kirk, Sulu... and a Red Shirt. And of course the red shirt immediately died! Loved that. People in the audience got the shout-out, were in on the joke, and enjoyed that nod to Trek history. People enjoyed the heck out of Sulu announcing that he could fence, then his kicking ass fencing. Keith Urban's Bones characterization was one big ol' hommage to DeForest Kelly. It was a treat. That was McCoy almost exactly as we knew him... only younger and hotter. But, still, it was recognizably him. And Scottie! Uhura! Chekov! Even Pike! (in a wheelchair no less). And of course, we finally got to see Kirk sabotage the Kobayashi Maru. (Spock losing his shit over it was a bonus!)

So much of the Trek Reboot was simply about re-introducing us to the old characters we loved in younger form, and then showing us that these were still the characters we loved. And the relationships we loved. They didn't skimp on the Kirk/Spock (or the Kirk/McCoy). If you're going to do TOS Trek, you have to honor those relationships. It wasn't just that Kirk was recognizably the same character. It wasn't that we had not one but two Spocks. It was that the friendship of Kirk/Spock was paramount. Hell, the friendship of the entire crew was paramount. The joy of the reboot was getting the old gang back together and proving to us, that despite the younger faces and bods... they were still the old gang. And we still got Spock, original version showing us why we loved the original version all along.

It was also pretty brilliant of Abrams that he allowed the original timeline to stand undisturbed, telling us -- quite literally -- this is an alternate timeline. The Trek Reboot worked because it used the relationships of the original and gave it its own different place... and made it fun. Somewhere in my LJ is my review of the Trek reboot when it came out and I remember saying something along the lines of it delivered what it had to -- it gave us the characters we loved and showed us why we loved them all over again.

I think most reboots that work tend to be ones that have enough age to them that there's nostalgia supporting them. Nostalgia (helpful if perhaps our memories have clouded with time) and the relationships and characters we love in the way that we love them.

Give me another fifteen years and I may be all for an X-Files reboot (still, please no continuation. The series had a 10+ year run. They exhausted the material.) But it really just hurt to watch the last X-Files movie because, though I could believe the way that things had changed in the story, that wasn't really the Mulder/Scully I loved. The Mulder/Scully I loved were bullheaded rogue FBI agents not people in a mid-life identity crisis having retired and wondering what to do with their lives.

I liked the way that the series ended -- yes, even the out-of-gas ending of the series finale, because it left Mulder and Scully fighting the good fight... together. That's what I wanted. That's the way I like to remember them -- so Chris Carter, quit screwing them up by bringing them back! Maybe in fifteen years I'll feel differently and someone can do a reboot and I'll squee, but for the time being, I like my originals just the way they were.

(And honestly, what's the point in rebooting the Kristie Swanson movie when it was the Fox and Mutant Enemy Buffy characters and stories that we loved? What's next, Harry Potter sans Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Voldemort, Snape, or Hogwarts and without the blessing of JK Rowling?)

So, I posted The Hunger Games meta, but I also followed the results of my poll and cracked open the X-Files DVDs. Wanting to go light, I chose War of the Coprophages which, damn, is still awesome. It's really too bad that Darin Morgan kind of whigged out and quit writing, because he had the weirdest, wonderful, funny writing going on.

I mean, sure, anyone could make an episode about killer cockroaches (but why?!) but to turn it into hilarious wierdness was his gift. The oddity of characters giving insanely overly detailed exposition on weird topics? Plus banter and MSR UST? He did it all.

Mulder: I know it's not your inclination but did you ever look up into the night sky and feel certain that not only was something up there but that it was looking down on you at that exact same moment and was just as curious about you as you are about it?
(Cut to Scully on the other end of the phone line...cleaning her gun.)
SCULLY: I think the only thing more fortuitous than the emergence of life on this planet is that through purely random laws of biological evolution, an intelligence as complex as ours ever emanated from it. (Puts her gun back together) The very idea of intelligent alien life is not only astronomically improbable but at it's downright anti-Darwinian.
MULDER: (beat) Scully, what are you wearing?

*snerk* Of course he was turned on.

Mulder calling Scully at home with whatever bizarre death he just stumbled across (He has theories...aliens! It must be aliens!... or killer cockroaches. *snerk*) Only to be shot down again and again.
( Read more... )
[Next Phone Call]
SCULLY: (Laying on her sofa reading Breakfast at Tiffany's)Who died now?
MULDER: The medical examiner. His body was found next to a toilet... covered in roaches. I really think you should come--
SCULLY: A toilet? Check his eyes. Is one of them bloodshot with a dilated pupil?
MULDER: (beat) Yeah.
SCULLY: It's probably a brain aneurysm.
MULDER: Brain aneurysm?!
SCULLY: Straining too forcefully is very common causation for bursting a brain aneurysm.
MULDER: Well (defensive now) how do you explain the cock roaches?
SCULLY: Did you catch any?
MULDER: [No.] Almost.
SCULLY: I don't know what to tell you, Mulder. I just hope you're not implying you've come across an infestation of killer cockroaches. [heh]

[Next Phone Call (skipping a few. The first half of the episode is a series of phone calls.]
SCULLY: (In bed, having been asleep) Mulder, are you okay?
MULDER: (also in bed) Yeah. I can't sleep.
SCULLY: What happened at the U.S.D.A. site?
MULDER:(a little put out) They're conducting legitimate experiments. (brightens) I met an entomologist, Doctor Berenbaum, who agrees with your theory of an accidental importation of a new cockroach species.
SCULLY: Did he give you any idea of how to catch them?
MULDER: No, but she did tell me everything else there is to know about insects.
SCULLY: She?
MULDER:Did you know that the ancient Egyptians worshiped the scarab beetle and possibly erected the pyramids to honor them, which may make them just giant symbolic dung heaps?
SCULLY: (Uninterested) Did you know the inventor of the flush toilet was named Thomas Crapper?
MULDER: Bambi also has this theory I've never come acro--
SCULLY: Who?
MULDER: Doctor Berenbaum. Anyway, her theory is--
SCULLY: Her name is Bambi?
MULDER: Yeah. Both her parents were naturalists. Anyway, her theory is that UFOs are nocturnal insect swarms passing through electrical field--.
SCULLY: Her name is Bambi?
MULDER: Scully, can I confess something to you?
SCULLY: Yeah, sure. Okay.
MULDER: I hate insects.
SCULLY: Lots of people are afraid of insects. It's a natural instinct.
MULDER: No, I'm not afraid of them. I hate them. When I was a kid, I was climbing this tree when I noticed this leaf walking towards me. It took forever for me to realize that it wasn't a leaf.
SCULLY: A praying mantis?
MULDER: Yeah. I had a praying mantis epiphany and, as a result, I screamed... not a girlie scream, but the scream of someone confronted by some unknown monster that had no right existing on the same planet that I inhabited.
SCULLY: Mulder, are you sure it wasn't a girlie scream?

Cock roach runs across the entire television screen (looking like it's on the viewer's television screen)
( Read more... )

And the episode coda:

SHERIFF: I don't think we're going to locate the doctor's remains.
MULDER: Or anything else, for that matter.
SHERIFF: It's not as bad as some of the other fires we had last night.
SCULLY: There were others?
SHERIFF: Four, to be exact. Plus eighteen auto accidents, thirteen assault and batteries, two stores were looted, thirty-six injuries all total, half of them from insecticide poisoning. But, we didn't receive reports on cockroaches or otherwise for the last couple of hours. Maybe this town's finally come to its senses. You two ought to go home and get some rest.
PROFESSOR IVANOV: Agent Mulder? Those, segments you showed me earlier, may I examine them again?
MULDER: (Pulls out small bag) They're completely desiccated just like the molted exoskeleton.
BAMBI: You know, many insects don't develop wings until their last molting stage. Perhaps whatever these things were, they had their final molt and have flown off back to wherever they originated.
SCULLY: Yeah (Doubtful) That would explain everything.
(Mulder shoots her a 'look'.)
IVANOV: May I borrow for further study?
MULDER:(shrugs) What do you hope to find ?
BAMBI: (fascinated by IVANOV) His destiny.
IVANOV: Isn't that what Doctor Zaius said to Zira at the end of "The Planet of the Apes?"
(Bambi nods. Smiling.)
BAMBI: It's one of my favorite movies.
IVANOV: Mine too. I love science fiction.
BAMBI: (To IVANOV) I'm fascinated by your research. (She and the doctor head off.) Have you ever considered programming robots to mimic the behavior of social insects like ants or bees?
IVANOV: As a matter of fact, I have...
(Mulder watches saddened and a little peeved.)
SCULLY: (Noticing) Smart is sexy.
(Mulder shoots her another 'look.')
SCULLY:Think of it this way. By the time there's another invasion of artificially-intelligent, dung-eating robotic probes from outer space, maybe their uber-children will have devised a way to save our planet...
(Aggravated, Mulder takes the umbrella and leaves...)

Heh. When the X-Files was good, it could be exceedingly fun. :)

So Amazon had X-Files DVDs on sale for $13.99 yesterday. I couldn't bring myself to shell out for all the seasons, but I did snap up my favorite seasons (3,4,5). It's a start! Plus, it has some great episodes that I haven't seen in a while.

So Amazon had X-Files DVDs on sale for $13.99 yesterday. I couldn't bring myself to shell out for all the seasons, but I did snap up my favorite seasons (3,4,5). It's a start! Plus, it has some great episodes that I haven't seen in a while.

Old ship wars never die, they just repeat themselves. Endlessly. And in entirely new reiterations (which isn't as much of an oxymoron as you'd think!)

Who knows why we ship certain fictional couples. It has a lot to do with what entertains us, what intrigues us, what we think is hot, what we think could be interesting, what... Actually there are a lot of possible whats. It doesn't really matter what fic kink is the root of our attraction. Everyone is allowed theirs.

Not everyone feels the same way about these things. That's life... and love. It's only when people start to be judgmental about it that ship wars break out. Now, I admit there have been some fics that make me scratch my head and wonder "what the freaking hell?" And there have even been a few fics that make me want to reach for brain bleach to erase the memory of them (one particularly -- epically -- bizarre Supernatural fic I ran into once falls into that category.) But, you know, since they weren't my thing, I didn't spend a whole heck of a lot of time complaining about them or complaining about the way others spent their free time writing fic about stuff that doesn't happen to interest me. It only needed to interest them to be sufficient reason for the creation of fanfic.

There have been/are some fairly popular ships in many fandoms that I don't 'get.' I remember back in my X-Files fandom days, Krycek/Mulder was a hugely popular ship that I just. did. not. understand (beyond the obvious that Nic Lea and David Duchovny were incredibly, freaking hot. I was perplexed not dead). But I would always return to the sticking point of "Krycek murdered Mulder's father!" Same thing would happen to me when Krycek/Scully fic would pop up. I would wonder, 'but, wait, he murdered Scully's sister...') Still, you know, in all my not feeling the ships, I don't think I ever once wrote a screed saying I was viscerally horrified when Krycek/Mulder smut or Krycek/Scully smut popped up on Gossamer or Ephemeral. I would've thought that it would be pointless, silly, and possibly offensive to some authors if I posited that fans had no businesss writing or at least were morally questionable for writing such fics or how bothered I was to see it show up on general fandom comms! Mainly I didn't write such things because I didn't feel that way. My feelings were more easily categorized as a puzzled head tilt and a 'huh' before moving on to the Scully/Mulder MSR that I was watching the list for. (And I had a serious issues with the now departed fic comm mod (Not Ephemeral or Gossamer) that up and forbade Doggett fic -- not just Doggett/Scully fic but any mention of Doggett at all...because she felt it somehow in some inexplicable way threatened her ship. I thought the attitude was absurd and quit the comm over that display of 'how dare people ship stuff that I don't ship!' entitlement.) People's interests vary. Not everyone likes what I like or vice versa. No one need explain themselves to me.

Why can't it be that simple?

There have been/are canon and fanon ships in a number of fandoms that don't do a damn thing for me. There's a huge shipping faction in True Blood that falls into that category. I understand why some people ship it, but I just... don't. Just today I ran across a post in a Being Human comm of "Why aren't there more Mitchell/Annie fics?" which took me by surprise, not because anything was wrong with it but just because it never crossed my mind to ship Mitchell/Annie in the first place. I have friends that ship couples that I just shake my head, puzzled over what the attraction could be, because it doesn't interest me. Heck, in one (relatively popular) canon/fanon pairing in a non-BtVS fandom, I cannot manage to like the characters individually, making it doubly difficult to understand why there are people who ship them together. But, you know what? It doesn't matter. There's nothing wrong with either of us. It's just a matter of preference. Not everyone likes the same thing.

Where fic is concerned there are a near endless list of things that can be done with any ship. There are good, thought provoking, and engaging fics that can be constructed out of just about any pairing if the writer is talented and interested enough. And sometimes the writer's preference and the reader's preference hits that sweet spot of perfect agreement. When that happens, whee!!!

But proclaiming "thou shalt not write X+Y fic (or X+X or Y+Y) because I don't like it" or that "You are only permitted to write X+Y fic (or X+X or Y+Y) under a the conditions I specify and consider to be acceptable" is sadly common and completely ridiculous. Fanfic is made for fans to enjoy. If you aren't a fan of the ship, move the heck along. The fic isn't meant for you. Proclaiming that someone else can't/shouldn't write whatever ship they like because it doesn't float your boat? Out of line.

Now, someone point me to some "how could you write that?!" OTPp penguin fic! Hee! >:)

Saw that enisy had posted some shippy vids and it put me in the mood. So, for no particular reason and in no particular order... shippy vids!( Behind the Cut )

Saw that enisy had posted some shippy vids and it put me in the mood. So, for no particular reason and in no particular order... shippy vids!( Behind the Cut )