apocalypsos | I didn't forget! Honest!

So I did the unpopular opinions meme the other day. Who'd like some responses?

madripoor_rose asked, What if anything annoys you about Yuletide?

Two things, really. I get really, really bothered by the people who never say thank you for their gifts or complain about what they get, at least in a public setting. If someone's giving you a gift in good faith, if they worked their ass on it in an effort to get you to like it, it certainly won't kill you to say thank you for them writing it for you in the first place. (This, of course, does not count when it comes to people who clearly don't give a shit if you wanted sweet fluffy Rachel/Finn babyfic for Yuletide, they're giving you NC-17 noncon where all of the Glee guys and Will gang-rape Kurt. Those people, as few and far between as they may be, are dicksmacks.)

And I'm always a little iffy when it comes to the rec posts. On one hand, not many people can realistically read through every story in the Yuletide archive every year, and it's nice to know which stories are good to watch out for. And God knows I get all warm and squishy and feel really grateful for every rec anything I write gets. That said, some years I get a little bothered with how much I want to be recced, and how disappointed I am if one of my stories doesn't get any attention. I could write four stories, have three of them be hugely popular, and then worry needlessly over the slapped-together chestnut I wrote at the last minute getting enough attention. And I'm really not joking or being all twee when I say that my main concern every Yuletide is that the people I write fics for enjoy their presents, so having my attentions distracted from that by my needy low-esteem-having ass always bugs. (Granted, that's definitely my problem and my problem only. Urgh.)

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amaresu wanted me to rant about Monoshippers/OTPers.

Okay, let me use SPN as an example. You have Wincest, and you have Dean/Castiel. And with some people, God forbid you tell someone you like both.

No, seriously, I like both. Dean's a bicycle, you guys, honestly. Give me enough liquor and time and I could ship that pretty fucker with SPN-canon God.

Jesus, shipping bugs me on about as many levels as I love it. I mean, with SPN my shipping philosophy is pretty much, "Everybody puppy-pile in the bed!" Seriously, I can happily buy any number of fic pairings if they're written well enough. Good writing sells a lot of sins to me, so if you want to write 50,000 words of Bela/Ash/Cassie non-con in which they re-enact 2 Girls 1 Cup and you're deft enough with a turn of phrase, then hell, I've found myself a new threesome to ... well, not enjoy, but possibly watch in morbid fascination. (Note: Please do not write that. I won't actually read it. Honestly, I may throw up halfway through the summary.)

I also get a little uncomfortable by people who won't even find something to like about a gay couple who are together and gay in canon. Like, okay, I understand why someone would be against shipping two same-sex characters who are straight in canon. I get why somebody could see that as OOC, although to be fair God knows it's not entirely outside of the realm of possibility for a seemingly straight character to come out as bi or gay. Where people lose me is with gay or lesbian couples who are genuinely together in fandom. I'm not saying everybody has to be, "I want to write fic about Oliver and Kyle, WOOHOO!" -- if you prefer het, that's perfectly understandable -- but if your reaction to someone posting a clip of their sex scene is more intensely negative than, "Eh, not my thing," I start to wonder, and not in a good way.

Luckily, as far as I know, the people on my friends list who aren't slashers are still gay-positive, but I know I've seen people out there in fandom like that.

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deepbluemermaid wanted, Tell us your thoughts about Glee and Glee fandom. Or SPN and SPN fandom. Or, indeed, your thoughts on yaoi...

Okay, I'll do one from SPN.

I didn't find Ellen and Jo's deaths sexist.

That's not to say that SPN doesn't have a rather detailed history of being full of misogynistic sexist bullshit. They seemed, at least up until Ellen and Jo's death in my eyes, completely incapable of writing a woman's death -- and there have to be dead women and dead black people and dead GLBT characters; they can't just kill straight white guys for five years, which is something I get really scared every once in a while that someone will actually lament during these discussions -- without making it as uncomfortable as possible. Mary and Jess get fridged. Bela gets left behind by the boys to be torn apart by hellhounds. Sam shoots Madison in the head. Ruby gets stabbed in an annoyingly phallic way.

And then Ellen and Jo die.

Now that's not saying that I wanted them to die. Fuck, I want them back SO MUCH. That said, on a show where we've genuinely had concerns that Dean and Sam -- you know, the LEADS -- won't even make it through the finale alive, expecting Ellen and Jo to survive the season seems a little silly. I expect the boys, Castiel and Bobby will all survive to the finale, because that would be just like the show at this point, but I'm not holding my breath. And I'd rather have Ellen and Jo come back and go down swinging than disappear into the ether never to be heard from again.

My thing is, out of the five good guys who went to Carthage that day, Ellen and Jo were the only ones who succeeded in their mission -- "Take down Lucifer or die trying." Their job was to make sure that Dean and Sam (like it or not, they are still the heroes) made it to Lucifer's side to try and take him down with the Colt, and they did their job. It's not their fault Dean and Sam fucked up on their end.

Ellen and Jo went down swinging and took out as many evil motherfuckers as possible. The boys, on the other hand, crawled out of town with their tails between their legs.

Quite frankly, Ellen and Jo win as far as I'm concerned.

(Castiel stepping over Meg to get out of the ring of fire is still shitty, though.)

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seraangel asked me about book fandoms.

Is it really wrong that the only thing that I can think of to say is that I feel no shame in admitting I can't wait to have one of my very own? I will not be happy until there's a category in Yuletide for a published book I wrote. :D