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Sep. 14th, 2016 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
babydracoI only recently went looking for fic, and I don't really hang out with people in the fandom so I don't think I could say I'm part of it but...
The Reign fandom is so weird to me. the biggest ship in the fandom is the main canon het pairing...(I guess I'm not counting the X Files, because I was only just barely starting to discover *fandom* fandom by the time the final seasons came along). I know there are others, but I"m talking about fandoms I care about personally. I don't actually have a problem with that but it's weird because apparently, neither does anyone else. Even people who think Mary should have married Bash or something, how far can they really take that argument? She picked Francis in RL.
There's some femslash, but the most prevalent ship on A03 is, in fact, Francis/Mary. *Some* unconventional non canon het pairings but not as many as you'd think considering the bed hopping which has happened so far in canon. And surprisingly, less Francis/Bash than you would think as well. People *didn't* attach themselves to the two pretty white boys with the emotionally fraught relationship and make the story entirely about them Not that I mind when I happen to ship the slash pairing too, but the key difference in a show like this, is, it's Mary's show. You have to really be a dedicated M/M slasher to be a hardcore Frasher.
It's a show where there's lots of great female characters who are complete human beings who talk to each other. The male characters are also fully realized people (they're treated much better by the narrative than the women would be if the main character was a man), but they ultimately serve Mary and Elizabeth's stories, not the other way around. There's no straight male character whose straight best male friend is treated as more important than his female romantic partner, leaving the female or gay male viewer to fantasize about being the best friend (or the straight hero in love with his best friend) because they have no other "in" character.
Like, there are M/M slash pairings which I think are a lot of fun, and there are pairings I really truly believe in. I LOVE M/M slash. But when the writers treat the female love interest as an afterthought, and yet still refuse to actually acknowledge or follow through on the m/m romance they accidentally created instead, it's so tiring. Either they're lying to you about the subtext or you were operating on wishful thinking, and it gets uncomfortable once that bubble of illusion that they were doing it on purpose and this time, this time it's really gonna happen, gets popped. People tend to go for the conspiracy theories because the other answer is too painful to deal with.
Frary is what happens when you give a fandom a good heroine and treat her like a real person and give her a realistic relationship with a believable male romantic lead. It's organic and unforced, and without informed attributes and fake shilling, they don't keep insisting that these people are in a perfect relationship, the writers and actors work hard to give us a reason to care. People are, surprise, actually invested in the main canon het romance.
It has happened with femslash (the whole wishful thinking creating a non canon slash pairing more popular than the canon one) on shows with large and diverse female casts too,lesbehonest. So it's not always the lack of women, despite how often M/M slashes use that as an excuse and then find ways to hate the one female character they're given. It's also about queer representation, because even though contemporary stories with all female casts with a lot of female writers are more likely to have at least one canon gay character than all guy projects, *most* of them still don't. But then, there's also no juggernaut femslash pairing on Reign. At least, not from what I saw on A03. There IS femslash, but no one specific non canon Big Pairing on the level of Swan Queen, Faberry or Rizzoli/Isles.
There's no Mary/Elizabeth. I know, they hate each other, they're trying to kill each other, they've never been in the same room and they're cousins, but it's not like that's ever stopped fanfic writers before. If anything, it's probably the RPF aspect which people really balk at. Some of the characters on the show were real historical figures, and some are OCs and that appears to make a difference.
But I just got back from seeing the 30th Anniversary big screen re release of Labyrinth, and I sort of want that AU now. Does that make sense? It feels like that would be awesome (with tinkering, because neither girl is the villain).
The Reign fandom is so weird to me. the biggest ship in the fandom is the main canon het pairing...(I guess I'm not counting the X Files, because I was only just barely starting to discover *fandom* fandom by the time the final seasons came along). I know there are others, but I"m talking about fandoms I care about personally. I don't actually have a problem with that but it's weird because apparently, neither does anyone else. Even people who think Mary should have married Bash or something, how far can they really take that argument? She picked Francis in RL.
There's some femslash, but the most prevalent ship on A03 is, in fact, Francis/Mary. *Some* unconventional non canon het pairings but not as many as you'd think considering the bed hopping which has happened so far in canon. And surprisingly, less Francis/Bash than you would think as well. People *didn't* attach themselves to the two pretty white boys with the emotionally fraught relationship and make the story entirely about them Not that I mind when I happen to ship the slash pairing too, but the key difference in a show like this, is, it's Mary's show. You have to really be a dedicated M/M slasher to be a hardcore Frasher.
It's a show where there's lots of great female characters who are complete human beings who talk to each other. The male characters are also fully realized people (they're treated much better by the narrative than the women would be if the main character was a man), but they ultimately serve Mary and Elizabeth's stories, not the other way around. There's no straight male character whose straight best male friend is treated as more important than his female romantic partner, leaving the female or gay male viewer to fantasize about being the best friend (or the straight hero in love with his best friend) because they have no other "in" character.
Like, there are M/M slash pairings which I think are a lot of fun, and there are pairings I really truly believe in. I LOVE M/M slash. But when the writers treat the female love interest as an afterthought, and yet still refuse to actually acknowledge or follow through on the m/m romance they accidentally created instead, it's so tiring. Either they're lying to you about the subtext or you were operating on wishful thinking, and it gets uncomfortable once that bubble of illusion that they were doing it on purpose and this time, this time it's really gonna happen, gets popped. People tend to go for the conspiracy theories because the other answer is too painful to deal with.
Frary is what happens when you give a fandom a good heroine and treat her like a real person and give her a realistic relationship with a believable male romantic lead. It's organic and unforced, and without informed attributes and fake shilling, they don't keep insisting that these people are in a perfect relationship, the writers and actors work hard to give us a reason to care. People are, surprise, actually invested in the main canon het romance.
It has happened with femslash (the whole wishful thinking creating a non canon slash pairing more popular than the canon one) on shows with large and diverse female casts too,lesbehonest. So it's not always the lack of women, despite how often M/M slashes use that as an excuse and then find ways to hate the one female character they're given. It's also about queer representation, because even though contemporary stories with all female casts with a lot of female writers are more likely to have at least one canon gay character than all guy projects, *most* of them still don't. But then, there's also no juggernaut femslash pairing on Reign. At least, not from what I saw on A03. There IS femslash, but no one specific non canon Big Pairing on the level of Swan Queen, Faberry or Rizzoli/Isles.
There's no Mary/Elizabeth. I know, they hate each other, they're trying to kill each other, they've never been in the same room and they're cousins, but it's not like that's ever stopped fanfic writers before. If anything, it's probably the RPF aspect which people really balk at. Some of the characters on the show were real historical figures, and some are OCs and that appears to make a difference.
But I just got back from seeing the 30th Anniversary big screen re release of Labyrinth, and I sort of want that AU now. Does that make sense? It feels like that would be awesome (with tinkering, because neither girl is the villain).
