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.