Fannish Fifty #1: a self-indulgent overview

[lucymonster]

Happy New Year, flist! Let’s do this thing.

So, my fannish style has always been more OTC (one true character) than ship centric. My process for getting into a new fandom generally goes:

1. fall consumingly in love with a character who ticks a couple of my very predictable boxes
2. dive headlong into whatever the most obvious ship for that character is because that’s where the content lives
3. spiral off into massively multishippy rarepair hell with heavy lashings of gen.

Often at some point I develop hype backlash from step 2 and start avoiding the big ship in favour of my rarepairs, though this doesn’t always happen: I can’t stomach Stucky at all anymore, but I still love Reylo as much as I did the day I saw TLJ. Another trend is that I start out a bit glarey at the main rival non-fave pairing (b/c uncomfortable when we are not about me my fave) and then resolve my issues by shipping it as an OT3: cf Finnreylo, Darkling/Alina/Mal, Byakuya/Renji/Ichigo.

I mentioned in my signup that my favourite characters are all really just the same couple of traits in different hats, and - look, there’s SOME variety, but I’m not really exaggerating. The following ingredients are not guaranteed to make a fave, but any fave I do have WILL contain some combination of:

• floppy dark hair
• track record of destructive behaviour that harms self as much as others
• aspirational toughness undermined by glaringly obvious emotional messiness
• some deep, deep unmet need or yearning I can pine over with them.

Kylo Ren is the only fave I can think of who checks all four boxes, and that’s probably why he has so thoroughly outstayed his rental term in my head (usually the consuming phase of an obsession burns out for me within about two years). Other faves I might blog about for this challenge include Faith Lehane, Kuchiki Byakuya, the Darkling, Ash Tyler, Adar, James Potter, movie Caspian, Aphra, Minn-Erva, James Norrington and Xue Yang.

So, villain-heavy, but not all villains by a long shot. I joke sometimes about being a villainfucker, but really, the “does horrible things on purpose” aspect is way less important to me than the “makes bad choices due to messy emotions and Suffers as a result” bit. There just happens to be a lot of overlap with common sympathetic villain tropes that makes my tastes look edgier than they actually are.

Comments

[snickfic]

MINN-ERVA. :))) And also Faith ofc.

[lucymonster]

Faith will forever have a special place in my heart for being the first female character I ever found who hit those notes for me. I was used to my sad boys being sad boys, so she was such a breath of fresh air.

And yesss, Minn-Erva always. :D

[walgesang]

Happy New Year! ♥

I feel like I tend to be very one true character more than ships too. Rare characters for the win! Did I read correctly that there's going to be new Shadow and Bone for 2023 or was I seeing things?

[lucymonster]

<3!

You did read correctly! It's due to be released mid-March and I'm super hyped. :D

[osprey_archer]

Yessss fannish 50! Looking forward to these posts.

Also movie!Caspian was such a dreamboat, my God. I didn't get big into him in a fannish way but every time he was on screen my eyes nearly melted out of my face... and then Susan would come onscreen and my eyes would nearly melt out of my face AGAIN... I actually have no idea if the movie was any good because they so thoroughly short-circuited my critical faculties.

[lucymonster]

I was still in school when the Prince Caspian movie came out, and I spent SO MUCH of my allowance on going to rewatch it. I think at one point I may actually have skipped class…I was so obsessed. I honestly can’t say if the movie is good either, because I’m too biased, but every few years I enjoy the hell out of a rewatch.

(His and Susan’s romance was an act of adaptational genius, I’ll fight anyone on this. They had so much chemistry! Teen me never stood a chance.)

[osprey_archer]

Usually I dislike romances added in the movie adaptation (and I felt that way even more when Prince Caspian came out) but in this case how could they NOT. The screen crackled whenever Susan or Prince Caspian was on it solo and positively burst into flames when they were together! The movie-makers' hands were forced.

[cloudwrack]

Happy New Year!

Yessss, those are good ingredients (floppy dark hair is the cherry on top!) and an excellent list of faves. Faith was absolutely formative for me as a "has messy feelings, makes bad choices, Suffers along with everyone else" type of character - it's been a billion years since I last watched Buffy and my love for her has yet to fade. ...and movie!Caspian does lean into this type as well, doesn't he. Hmmm. /considers a rewatch

[lucymonster]

I can’t even tell whether the floppy dark hair is an essential ingredient or an incidental association, lol. So many characters within the archetypes I love seem to have it. Faith was formative for me too; I didn’t enjoy my last Buffy rewatch as much as I hoped I would, but her episodes are still every bit as good as I remember them being.

I’ve been thinking about a Prince Caspian rewatch to! I love the books in their own right, but chipper book!Caspian just doesn’t scratch the same itch as sadboi movie!Caspian with the family angst and the doomed love.

[delphi]

Oh man, I relate very much to that process.

[lucymonster]

Heh, glad it’s not just me! I’m like clockwork.

[delphi]

I always tell myself the good times of step #2 will last forever, and wow, isn't it great having all this fic and art for once. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking.

[dr_zook]

the “does horrible things on purpose” aspect is way less important to me than the “makes bad choices due to messy emotions and Suffers as a result” bit. There just happens to be a lot of overlap with common sympathetic villain tropes that makes my tastes look edgier than they actually are

Haha, I can relate to this very much. XD

[lucymonster]

It’s just such a good trope 😂🥰

[nev_rbett_r]

Me reading your ingredients: 1... 2... 3... hey. hey that sounds like Faith.
I read on: OMG FAITH LEHANE <3

Faith is such an all-time fav for me. BTVS interests me so much more when she's around. She's so compelling!

I super-duper relate to your OTC fanon though... especially (and unfortunately) backlash effect on THE popular ship. I wish I could ship it! I really do! But I cannot tolerate it if my NOTP are even exes. I must ask: stance on Faith ships?

[lucymonster]

SHE’S MY FOREVER FAVE. I’ve watched all her episodes probably a million times over (except season 7, which I remember disliking when I watched it as a teen - man, I really need to go back for a rewatch and see if my perspective is different now).

I think the only Faith ship I’m turned off by is Faith/Buffy, because of the hype backlash thing (and I’m slightly bitter about it lol, because how often does a femslash ship get popular enough to even come close to triggering my hype backlash???). I love a lot of rare femslash ships for her, especially Willow - I just really love the good girl/bad girl dynamic they’d have in early canon, and then the subversion later on when Willow goes completely off the rails. 🤩 But honestly there’s not much for her I’d really turn down.

Do you have any favourite ships for her?

(Oh, man, I can already tell this Fannish Fifty project is going to be dangerous. I don’t have TIME for a full Faith-centric Buffyverse rewatch but talking about her is making me want one…)

[nev_rbett_r]

I have a confession to make: I've only seen about 3.5 seasons of Buffy and 1 season of Angel, so I have only seen Faith be a huge mess. I am also not really in the fandom so I haven't soured on the Faith/Buffy dynamic! Which is nice for once since there's some canon clips to make gifs out of. S3E14 "Bad Girls" mainly. Condolences on your hype backlash! If it makes you feel any better I'm very picky about the F/B content I engage with. Mostly I re watch the bait in canon. ^-^;

I will strongly consider some Willow/Faith now that you mention it! I'm slightly at a disadvantage because I never got to Dark!Willow or Stable!(?)Faith but that sounds extremely intriguing.

[lucymonster]

The bait in canon is very, very good! Bad Girls is a big reason why I wish so bad that I shipped it, haha. But tbh it sounds like you’ve seen all the best Faith content anyway. I’ve always been very partial to her bodyswap with Buffy in S4, but her S7 stuff clearly didn’t make as much impression on me since I’m hard pressed to tell you what even happened.

I wish I could throw in some fic recs to lure you, but I’ve yet to find anything that’s exactly what I want for them (and most of what exists is set in S7 anyway). But I request it in exchanges every so often - perhaps someday someone will take pity on me lol.

[nev_rbett_r]

The body swap episode was the last one I watched actually! Same thing with Angel when Faith showed up S1. I adore Faith's actress but seeing SMG play faith was a treat as well!

I hope you get lucky with the exchange circuit! I like directly post-S3 things particularly well so maybe vampire Willow could be involved? Not sure how she's different from Dark Phoenix Willow. (I only know the broadest strokes of the plot.)