The OTP dilemma: A Mag7 wank

[tanndell]

I find myself in a slashers dilemma, emerging from a fandom I got into a while ago, and the problem centres around OTP’s.  Now as all slashers know, finding niche pairings written in a fandom is rare, finding good ones is rarer still.  In all my previous fandoms, this was never a problem because I loved my OTP’s.  Mckay/Sheppard, House/Wilson, Fraser/RayK, Harry/Draco, Duncan/Methos, all these pairings had me love either one or both of them enough to read the fiction as it stood, and there was an almost unlimited amount of fic to read.  Then I discovered Magnificent Seven.  The 1998 TV Series, based very sketchily on the Yul Brynner/Steve Mcqueen movie of the same name, had all the ingredients to delight a slashers heart, and hit several of my personal buttons, namely good-looking men, horses, the Western motif etc.  I couldn’t wait to watch the series and get down to the Chris/Vin slash that seemed to pervade the fandom.  I did, and it was a pile of smoking fail.

''The problem I faced was simple, I just didn’t like the OTP.  Chris did nothing for me as a character (odd, because I usually like the dark, brooding variety), and Vin was just too much of the silent but gold-hearted loner to work for me.  As you may have noted above, I like my buddy pairings to be coming together of opposites.  Chris/Vin were too similar, too attuned, too simple for my liking.  Yet the slash was obvious, there was no getting out of that.

            The other reason for my dislike for the pairing was the fact that I fell head over heels, arse over elbows in love with Ezra Standish.  The smooth-talking, self-absorbed, mercenary, manipulative gambler was everything I love in a character.  Add to that a pair of pretty green eyes, and I was sold at hello!  This meant that I scoured the fansites for Ezra slash.  Now to be fair, I did find some good stuff.  Zeke Black’s Chris/Ezra stories are outstanding, as are Auburn’s Ezra/Vin fics.  There are some other authors out there as well who do write some convincing Ezra/Someone slash (note, I love this character enough not to be picky about who he’s slashed with).  But, it must be admitted that it is very much in the minority.  Part of the reason for this is that all the good writers dedicate themselves to the OTP.  The other reason is that many Magnificent Seven writers insist that to be loved, Ezra must be gentled or tamed or some such ridiculous thing, which in almost all cases means feminized.  He becomes a needy, weepy, abused, swooning piece of delicate darlingness, which makes me want be violently sick.  The real trouble is that even good writers do this, something that fills me with inordinate rage.

            So what’s a girl to do?  I tried Chris/Vin, and found them even more annoying than I thought I would, because St Vin of the Tortured Soul, as fic seems to demand he be, also makes me sick.  Have any of these people actually watched the show?  Again there are exceptions to this rule.  Farad is probably the only author in the fandom I will tolerate writing Chris/Vin (partly I think because she also writes Chris/Vin, Ezra/Vin brilliantly, keeping Ezra perfectly in character all the way through).  I find myself hopelessly truncating the majority of the fandom, because I don’t like the OTP enough to read them.''

         Has anyone else suffered from this dilemma?  I suddenly find myself sympathizing with the Ronon/Sheppard, Draco/Ron etc shippers of the world.  It’s hard to be picky about this kind of thing.  Go on, tell me all about it.

 

Comments

[zeuses-wild.livejournal.com]

Wow, holy four months late, Batman, but I know exactly what you mean when it comes to Ezra slash.

Holy crap, it drives me NUTS. So much so I can hardly read slash fic with him. He's never, ever been a shrinking, feminine violet. WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS TO HIM!? ffs. So squinky and wrong and I can think of many writers who do it and very, very few quality writers who don't. In fact, I can only think of one more in addition to Auburn and Zeke, and that is Katherine's Seven For Hire series. Quite good, and the guys remain guys, and in character. I know exactly where you are coming from.

This means I normally only read gen M7 fic starring Ezra - which is fine, too, I like straight Ez just fine because he kicks ass and is entertaining to read when he's written right. I think few people have the ability to do this as well, unfortunately. He must be a hard character to get a handle on or something. Katherine's Immortal 7 AU, Eleanor Tremayne, and Jean Graham all do a wonderful gen Ezra. Only one of them is still writing M7, sadly.

...Anyway wow, sorry for rambling, you may not even be into M7 fic anymore! Just wanted to let you know I share your frustration, lol.

[tanndell.livejournal.com]

Better late than never, zeuses, and thanks for commenting. I can hardly judge, because I'm the worst kind of lurker that lurks.
I'm still very much into the M7 fandom, small though it maybe, and wander around sites disconsolately, hoping for Ezra fic, and one of the things that make me mad is that so much of Ezra-centric gen fic feminizes him too. The really good ones don't. Jean Graham (who I adore) is a good example, Nottasha and Tipper don't do it either. But there's a section that hurt-comforts him indiscriminately by making him a part of the team only because he's been horribly abused/mistreated/misunderstood in the past, and so his conman aura is just a facade
While this may be true in canon, his tongue in cheek kickass awesomeness is why I fell in love with him. Why do people have to take that away from him to make him a part of the team.
If only bad writers did it, I could forgive it, but good writers do it. Jean's 'Painful Memories', Violette's 'Blame', I could go on and on, but aarrrgghh.

[zeuses-wild.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can't say much for lurking, either.

That's a really good point about gen fic feminizing him too. I don't know why it's so hard to write him behaving as a man but, ugh! Well, intellectually I know why it's done, of course, it's because thirteen-year-old fangirls want to hurt him and make him suffer and it's all for the angst. (Which I have nothing against when it's done correctly!) And the way a lot of people/writers/fangirls write angst is by making him totally OOC and having an emotional flip-out. In other words, it's how a lot of teenaged girls behave. Also, a lot of fanfic writers are typically women - perhaps young, inexperienced women - who don't know how to how to write men.

Ezra's totally a lovable cad. I have no problem with writers inventing a tragic, abused past, but it can be done without making him a simpering wimp who cries at the drop of a hat. And without losing that irreverence and that edge that makes him a dangerous lovable cad.

Clearly, I could go on and on too, but it's nice to see this feminizing tendency irritates someone besides me!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Clicked my way through from astolat lambvid commentage and found that you haven't posted since... 2008???

Anyway, yes! Rare pairings! 'tis frustration, and tell me about it! The only thing left to do is to write your own and then you risk nobody a) reading, and b) nobody even understanding. When I wrote my April Bingham fics in SGA, many readers thought that April was an original character so rare is she!!!

I've not been in a fandom, I have to admit, where I've only liked the rare. I usually drool over the standard, mainstream pretty PLUS an assortment of rare and weird and generally unloved.

Of course, my one-time-to-die-for OTP is Draco/Dudley. And who wrote that??? *looks around into empty ether* To me, these two are so obviously to be paired. Who is the first person Harry is reminded of when he first claps eyes on Draco? Well, DUH.

I have been writing a triangle-opus for years now. Will it ever see the light of day? There is no fan love to throw oil on those fires.

But I digress.

:-)

Post more. You are fun!

[tanndell.livejournal.com]

Oh Lambvid, how I loved it... but I digress... I don't post as often as I'd like to because I'm terminally lazy, but the rare-pairings frustration was so overwhelming that I had to vent!!
I was tempted to write my own fic in Mag7, and fortunately Ezra on his own is a popular enough character to probably get enough attention, even if he isn't the most slashtastic, but I like getting a canon/fanon handle on things before I write, and oh, the lack of fanon!
As for your own rare-pairings... glee!!! I remember the mention of April Bingham (the blonde from Rodneys algebra class, wasn't she?)... I shall go read fic immediately
As for Dudley/Draco, if your triangle-opus is Dudley/Draco/Harry, you had me at hello!
I'm there with bells on, oh the snark... My super sekrit rare-pairing in Harry Potter was Hagrid/Madam Maxime, because oh for the social pressures, and the class differences and the integration with the wizarding world, and the denial of identity. But I could whistle for it, for all that fandom cares.