wow, that's a lot of rambling
Apr. 9th, 2014 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardOkay, I get why some authors write love triangles now. It's a huge power trip, at least in terms of reader response. (I'm not even actually writing a love triangle, it just looks like one if you don't happen to know my OT3 tendencies.) Like, I, personally, think my plot twists are cleverer than anything I'm ever going to write romantically, but in most cases plotting and plot twists and red herrings and cliffhangers don't hit the reader as viscerally as something romantic does, and in most cases I don't think the reader has such strong feelings about plot twists (unless it's a character death) as they're likely to about pairings.
Now, I don't think most, all, or even any authors actually write love triangles because of POWER ULTIMATE POWER muahahahaha. (Honestly, I'm trying to think of a fictional love triangle I'm really into; in most cases, I look at love triangles and go, "This would work way better as an OT3." I'M LOOKING AT YOU PEARL HARBOR.) But wow, what a rush. Of authorial power, I mean. Because people have feelings about ships.
And, okay, I think this might be something that's unique to fanfic, which is usually labeled up the wazoo especially when it comes to pairings. And I deliberately didn't tack any ship tags onto Gambit mostly because while I knew what I wanted to write, I didn't know if I was actually brave enough to do so in the story. (Turns out I am. I'm committed now. There's no backing down. Gotta do it now.) But I don't know if I've ever actually seen a traditional love triangle in fic because most ship fic is written by, well, shippers. Actually, that's a lie, I'm suddenly remembering the days when Draco Veritas was still a WIP and HP fandom was going mad about the love triangle there, but that was more than a decade ago. Actually, most of the love triangles in fic I can think of date back to HP fandom of a decade or so ago, the days of the long plotty fanfic set during the Long Summer between GOF and OotP, which is a completely different fannish age than today.
...god, I feel old.
Anyway, what I was saying was, that's a genre that you don't see much in the current fannish atmosphere. Shipfic is shipfic, unambiguously. This probably varies to some extent based on fandom, especially since I should add that I read very, very little fic these days, so Glee or Vampire Diaries or...whatever the kids are into these days...oh god I feel old...may be doing love triangles all over the place. But considering that it's a subgenre that shows up a lot in the canon of various popular fandoms, there's very little of it in fic. Fen really like the pairings in their fic unambiguous, I've found.
Now, I don't think most, all, or even any authors actually write love triangles because of POWER ULTIMATE POWER muahahahaha. (Honestly, I'm trying to think of a fictional love triangle I'm really into; in most cases, I look at love triangles and go, "This would work way better as an OT3." I'M LOOKING AT YOU PEARL HARBOR.) But wow, what a rush. Of authorial power, I mean. Because people have feelings about ships.
And, okay, I think this might be something that's unique to fanfic, which is usually labeled up the wazoo especially when it comes to pairings. And I deliberately didn't tack any ship tags onto Gambit mostly because while I knew what I wanted to write, I didn't know if I was actually brave enough to do so in the story. (Turns out I am. I'm committed now. There's no backing down. Gotta do it now.) But I don't know if I've ever actually seen a traditional love triangle in fic because most ship fic is written by, well, shippers. Actually, that's a lie, I'm suddenly remembering the days when Draco Veritas was still a WIP and HP fandom was going mad about the love triangle there, but that was more than a decade ago. Actually, most of the love triangles in fic I can think of date back to HP fandom of a decade or so ago, the days of the long plotty fanfic set during the Long Summer between GOF and OotP, which is a completely different fannish age than today.
...god, I feel old.
Anyway, what I was saying was, that's a genre that you don't see much in the current fannish atmosphere. Shipfic is shipfic, unambiguously. This probably varies to some extent based on fandom, especially since I should add that I read very, very little fic these days, so Glee or Vampire Diaries or...whatever the kids are into these days...oh god I feel old...may be doing love triangles all over the place. But considering that it's a subgenre that shows up a lot in the canon of various popular fandoms, there's very little of it in fic. Fen really like the pairings in their fic unambiguous, I've found.