I hate shipping unpopular pairings

[linndechir]

Mhm. I want to sign up for asoiaf_exchange (because there can never be too many exchanges, right?), but I have such trouble coming up with prompts that are not about Stannis. Or rather, I can think of prompts that may be interesting, but I know that I'm going to be so very disappointed if someone writes one of those prompts for me and not one of my Stannis prompts. I mean, I'd love to see stuff like that Jon/Aegon AU that keeps going around in my head, or a proper Rhaegar/Lyanna non-con fic (what's up with people romanticising this pairing?), or a sympathetic take on Randyll Tarly, or a fic about the Blackfish's past or his future plans, or about Victarion getting his ass kicked during the Greyjoy rebellion, or about Roose wiggling his way out of the current situation at Winterfell ... Or I want stuff that I know nobody is going to write, like Victarion making Daenerys' dragons turn on her. I don't want to write a prompt that just sound like, "I hate this character, please kill them in an awful way." Even though it would make for an interesting story, in my opinion, it's just kind of a dickish prompt to write. And it's bad enough that all my Stannis prompts include, "please kill Melisandre?"
We're supposed to include at least one popular pairing or character, but the popular pairings or characters either don't interested me at all (Jaime/Brienne, Robb/Jon, Ned/Catelyn, that kind of thing) or there's already so much fic for them that I really don't see why I should waste a fic written just for me on this (I really like SanSan, but I know there will be enough SanSan even without me requesting it). I still have a bit of time to think about this, but in the end it just comes down to me not liking the popular pairings (or at least not being interested enough in them to request fic), to me wanting weird shit that nobody wants to write, and mainly to me wanting to read Stannis fics more than anything else.

And I just saw that one Castle episode in which one guy quotes ASOIAF. "You do not understand, detective. You woke the dragon." He sounded all serious, and there was ominous music in the background. Haha, what a crossover. I love Beckett so much. ^^

Oh, and can anyone explain to me why Chopin only wrote a single piano trio? I love that piano trio so much more than any of his other work. I'm usually not a big fan of Chopin, much of his work is too dreamy for my taste. (Yes, gasp, someone who plays the piano and does not adore Chopin, I know, what a crime.) But that piano trio  ...

Comments

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

You're missing out. <3 ASOIAF is one of the most perfect fandoms for fanfic. It's like a huge playground full of possibilities. But, hey, your choice, your loss. ^^

Why am I even awake ranting about this? -.-

[lydzi.livejournal.com]

Or I want stuff that I know nobody is going to write, like Victarion making Daenerys' dragons turn on her

DO WANT!

I will say it here very freely, because I know I can, but I don't get the Robb/Jon thing. I know I do like Jon/Sansa but Sansa never actually treated Jon as a brother. So the technicality weirds me out less (and it's more about the symbolic tbh).

But Robb/Jon?

What?

Oh well whatever flots people's boat.

I'm very sad that Victarion is never in fics. Like... never. For real. You can find some Euron but Vic seems to be not interesting enough :/.

[0ninchi0.livejournal.com]

I wish someone would write fic about Blackfish's past too. And Victarion. Which reminds me, I like that idea about his turning Dany's dragons on her. Someone other than Dany taking care/command over those dragons is a prospect I look forward to more than any story line in which they stay with her. But alas, I don't think Martin would ever leave Dany...dragonless.

(Yes, gasp, someone who plays the piano and does not adore Chopin, I know, what a crime.)

If it makes you feel any better, my partner is a pianist and he does not adore Chopin either, far from it.

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

You mean obsessed.

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

Haha, sounds like my Victarion killing Daenerys thing is not as awful as I thought. I JUST WANT MORE OF VICTARION BEING THE BIGGEST BADASS. :D But, still, I know the prompt is mostly about me wanting Daenerys roasted.

You know, it really irritates me that I don't ship Robb/Jon, because I usually love brother/brother ships. I suppose it's because I never cared much about Robb, nor about Jon before he became LC, so to me they're just these 15-year-old boys who can do whatever they like with each other, but I just don't care.

I find Victarion more interesting than Euron, ftm. We hardly know anything about Euron except "crazy pirate with an eyepatch".

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I just want those dragons to die. Or to stay in Essos. Far far away. But before that, they can at least do something useful and rid the world of Victarion. Argh.
I'm fairly sure that the Blackfish is gay, and I'll be very disappointed if he isn't, in canon. But it would still be nice to read a fic about it.

It does make me feel better. Usually people are all outraged because you HAVE to adore Chopin. -.- It's not even that I hate his music, I'm just not a fan.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I want all your prompts. I want fic about Blckfish and I want fic about Victarion. And Euron and other brothers. And about young Stannis.

Sansa/Sandor - as much as I love the paring ,sansaxsandor is probably the liveliest paring community on LJ. TONS of fiction.

But with popular pairings you can always make an interesting twist - like Sansa/Sandor - you can ask for a past story about Sandor's sister and/or father . Or with Rhaegar/Lyanna, as you say, you can ask for "NO ROMANCE". You are in charge, right?

And I think you can ask for a character kill if you want them dead? I totally would. :D

Edit: A confession. I LOVE shipping unpopular opinions (or at least controversial). I get so bored with popular ones. I am contrary this way.

[geeklee.livejournal.com]

what about stannis/melisandre non-con? i think you'd get tons of takers for that!

[geeklee.livejournal.com]

btw, i found this (http://funnyfeminist.com/2011/06/24/the-rape-of-lyanna-stark/) an interesting look at both sides of the rhaegar/lyanna question. might explain some of the thoughts about them.

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

The Rhaegar/Lyanna thing you linked me to is rather interesting, and I -understand- why people ship them as a romantic pairing, a doomed love story. But my issue with this pairing is not that I have a different view on Robert than most R/L shippers (my hatred for R/L as a romantic pairing has nothing to do with Robert), but I have a complete different view on Rhaegar. Any possible interpretation of the events make Rhaegar look like a rather unpleasant character to me: even if we go with a tragic love story, and Lyanna wuved him so much and went along with him ... that still makes Rhaegar dumb as hell if he thought he could just get away with what he did. He should have known that both the Starks and Robert Baratheon would raise hell if he runs off with Lyanna, EVEN IF Lyanna is totally in love with him. And I'd rather take a twisted story about a delusional rapist and a girl who loved someone else than some shitty tragic love story about two people who were apparently dumb. Not my cup of tea.

Haha, true, but I honestly don't particularly want to read in detail about Melisandre raping Stannis. It's bad enough that I'm convinced she does, but I don't exactly need a detailed fic about it. Also, that would just be another Stannis prompt, and I don't think I'm supposed to write five Stannis prompts.

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

I want all my prompts as well, but I really want a Stannis fic more than any of the other prompts. :/

The world has enough Sandor/Sansa without my help. And of course I could ask for that brutal, insane, non-con Rhaegar/Lyanna fic ... I'm actually considering to include that as my non-Stannis prompt. Unless I go for the Victarion thing.

I should rephrase: I adore shipping unpopular pairings. I love having to defend why I love them, I adore writing fic in small fandom niches, and I mostly love it when people say, "I never shipped this before, but you made me ship it." What I meant is that it's also frustrating: there's almost no fic, and when you participate in exchanges, you're expected to include "popular pairings" because nobody ships the stuff you like most. :/

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

** hides **I have to confess - I am not that bothered about fanfiction. Here - I said it. The majority of it is just not well-written and too short for my tastes, and so often it deviates from the characters (as I view them). I rarely read fanfiction, and less traditional forms of it like crossover fill me with puzzlement (seems like a total waste of time?). I mean - ok, let's write Sansa and Sandor as Russian pheasants , but this will not be Sansa and Sandor anymore.

The pairings I like fanfiction for are canon ones (in the sense that they have some at least .. hint .. in the canon) , but at the same time the ones that re not "end product". I. e., anyone still writing Harry and Hermione are free people and free to write what they want, but I am personally not interested. Because this is not the way the story goes.

Why am I going on and on about this? :D

This all said, I loved your Stannis/Davos fiction. It was that rare case when I truly enjoyed the fanfiction genre. THERE SHOULD BE MORE OF IT in the world.

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

You don't have to apologise for not liking fanfiction, to each their own. I agree that much of it is horribly written, and there will always be strange things that I just don't get (crossovers, Mary Sues, self-inserts, AUs that have nothing to do with the original material anymore). But some fanfic is on par or even better than the original. Some fanfic adds a whole new dimension to a character, explores them, develops them further. And in a fandom like ASOIAF, I also really like fanfic about "what if" scenarios.

Most canon pairings bore me, because most canon pairings are ... well, boring. Let's face it, most shows and books and movies ship the obvious stuff. Most of the time it's het (which is not my cup of tea in 95% of all cases), often these relationships are obvious, one-dimensional, and seem to be there so there can be a bit of angsting and emotions and in the end they kiss and all is well. That's not what I like in my pairings. I like my pairings to be complex, and complicated, and unconventional, and often tragic, and most canon pairings don't give me that. Of course, that's not true for all canon pairings, some of them are absolutely amazing. But most canon pairings, as well as most popular fanon pairings, are just not what I like.

Haha, thank you. :) You know, I consider Stannis/Davos a canon pairing. Not as a sexual relationship, obviously, because I have trouble getting them to have sex even in fanfic. But I think it's canon that their relationship goes far beyond mere friendship, and that they have such strong feelings for each other that it definitely borders on the romantic. And there is enough material in canon to support the theory that Stannis COULD be bisexual or gay, so I don't even see him being attracted to Davos as non-canon.

[0ninchi0.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty much convinced Brynden is gay too and would be disappointed if he wasn't. Even of we don't find out whether he's gay or not, it's cannon in my head. :P

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

Same here. I don't need it to be canon, I just don't want a cheap canon explanation like him being in love with some peasant girl he couldn't marry, or whatever. Brynden being gay just makes so much sense with the few things we know about him.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I have read few examples (and quite few!) of fanfiction that is EXCELLENT. But I am too lazy to look for it in an avalanche of less- interesting stuff. I just tend to stick to people whose writing I like .

I think ASOIAF is so well-suited to fanfiction. So many strands of the story are not finished yet. So many possibilities. It will take ages for Martin to finish the books, so we can have years of fun!

Oh, Davos/Stannis is totally canon in my eyes. I mean pairings like Jaime/Sansa - you have to change Jaime considerably (in my opinion) to get him into a place where he is head-over-heels with Sansa (per chance a Sansa/jaime shipper comes along - I am not bashing, I am just using it as example of non-canon pairing. I support "free shipping" and accept that some people like non-canon!)

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

True, good fanfic is hard to find. It's easy when you just want some mindless porn or fluff, but if you're looking for really good character pieces ... you need to look for a while.

Yes, and there are so many little side characters whose story never gets told, so many things we don't know even about the past of the main characters. So many possibilities of what could have happened, what might happen, what would change if one event had been different. <3

There are pairings like that, and I think Jaime/Sansa is a good example, that make absolutely no sense to me either. But then again, I do understand shipping certain pairings when you think that they would be great together if they ever met (it's why I ship Stannis/Sansa, or why I once madly shipped a pairing in a different fandom of two men who had never met, because their personalities were just so well suited to each other, it was like soulmates just waiting to meet). I just don't get the pairings that look a bit like, "I like character A and character B, so I'm gonna ship them" (Jon/Daenerys -.-) or, as you said, pairings that would require one character to change completely to make it work.

[0ninchi0.livejournal.com]

Oh please not the "he was in love with a peasant girl" twist. I cringe at the very thought of it. And yes, I agree that him being gay makes the most sense considering what we know about him. I can so imagine his family going crazy over him refusing to marry if they have had any previous knowledge of him being gay, a member of one of the big houses and all that.

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone would have cared that he likes to fuck men, as long as he's quiet about it and still does his duty and marries. I also like to imagine the young Blackfish as a rather reckless, insolent guy, who just enjoyed yanking his brother's chain.

[lydzi.livejournal.com]

The fact that Victarion could be Azor Ahai is mind blowing tbh. I don't think he will be just the fact that he could is wonderful XD. WHY NO FIC ABOUT THAT?

There's so many tings to write about Victarion :o. It pains me to see "no Grejoys" every time there's an exchange or anything. I do understand if you don't like them because, well I don't fancy the Lannisters for example, but we're so very very few ^^'.

I still think there's a lack of "Team Extraordinaire" and real Bromance (but without necessarly the sex part) within fics. Maybe the all exchange will change it a bit ^^. *thumbs up*

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

Not a fan of Victarion as AA, but I would love to see Victarion playing a bigger role in the last books. I will be so disappointed if he either gets killed off or marries Daenerys (and then gets killed off). OR, even more epic, he marries her, but beats her to death for fucking sellswords with golden teeth, y/y? ;) But seriously, there must be some sort of foreshadowing in how Victarion keeps thinking about how he had to kill his wife for sleeping with another man.
God, my dislike for Daenerys is taking epic proportions.

I used to be very "no Greyjoys" myself, because in the beginning the Greyjoys we knew were Theon (who bores me), Asha (who seemed to be fun, but who didn't interest me all that much until after Balon's death) and Balon (who didn't seem to have much of a personality beyond, "but I want to be king!"). I also still think that the Greyjoys chapters in AFFC were too long. But I still like the Greyjoys in general, now. Mostly Victarion because HE IS SO FUCKING INSANE IT'S AWESOME. Erm, sorry. I love Victarion. Euron not so much for the moment, because we don't know that much yet and I honestly like Victarion better. He's like pirate!Stannis gone mad. ;)

I realised that many of the slash pairings I ship in this fandom are very bromancy/UST. Like, I'm perfectly fine with them having sex and it would probably be hot, but I'm just as fine with them being platonically in love and maybe wanting to have sex with each other without ever doing it. Stannis/Davos, Stannis/Jon, Ned/Robert, Tyrion&Bronn (they don't even get a slash sign ;)).

[lydzi.livejournal.com]

Victarion as AA would be the death of Westeros tbh lol. I can see the Apocalyps from here XD.
I was so hyped about Victarion finding Danny lol and then GRRM trolled us ONE MORE TIME. If one day we see some characters getting to their destination, I will cheer irl XD.
Poor Dany ^^. She tried. I give her that tbh. She really tried but she has that terrible Mother Teresa syndrome. I fear her collision with the Septons once in Westeros. She could... idk. But I still have faith in her somehow. I still think she can do something right. I believe the shock of seeing other people's view on her (because until AFFC the only view we had in Pentos side was Dany's).

Ok I'll continue this later because some clients are being pain in the ass rn. :p

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

It would be an interesting twist, of course - AA is not the saviour, but the one who brings death and destruction. That would be awesome. (Though Daenerys would also make a great Evil!AA.)

Daenerys tried, and I really used to like her. But by now she has turned into such a self-righteous, entitled, delusional piece of shit that all I want is for her to die so I don't have to read hundreds of pages about her being more awesome and speshul than everyone else. I'm so sick of her, and of the way GRRM writes about her, and of her plot armour. I just want her dead. GRRM kills characters off for much smaller mistakes, and she keeps fucking up again and again and still gets out on top. Argh.

Argh, poor you. :(

[sternflammenden.livejournal.com]

Dude, I think that I'm going to friend you because my creepy lurking...and I agree! There seriously needs to be more of these badass/unpopular people in fic like Blackfish, Randall Tarly (would LOVE to see a sympathetic take on that guy - it would be so unusual), Stannis, etc.

I love your prompts (especially the "Roose worms out of trouble" - I have an inclination to write that one of these days, among my zillion other ideas) - and yeah, I was struggling to think of ONE popular ship to choose for this exchange because I'm all BOLTONS FREYS GREYJOYS RAWR I WILL WRITE THEM AND LOVE THEM ALL IN THEIR HORRIBLENESS and almost everyone else is like, NO EVIL PEOPLE.

I spent today all frustrated because I want to read Bolton fic that isn't mine and there are like, 2 of them that I can find, and while they're both great, I want more. Alas.

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see stuff about people like Tarly or Blackfish, but I'm not sure I care enough to request that on an exchange. Not when my main thought is that the world needs more Stannis fic. Okay, maybe not the world, but I need it.

I think I'm going to put in the Roose prompt. And as number five ... I don't know, maybe I will use the "Victarion kills Daenerys" prompt. If nobody writes it, great, I get something else. If someone writes it, I'll get to see her die. I'm just afraid they'll turn it into some tragic story about Daenerys being all heroic and admirable. (And of course I will look like a dick posting this prompt, but I can live with that.)
And that exchange is so, so full of het. I feel kind of alone, as someone who is most of the time incredibly uncomforable with writing female characters. And all I see is Jaime/Brienne, and prompts about couples living happily ever after with a bunch of kids, or character studies for the female characters. Where's all the love for the guys? :( Especially the morally ambiguous, interesting guys.

I understand. :/ The very first pairing I ever wrote fanfic for was so obscure that mine was the first fic for them. And in most of my fandoms I end up picking pairings like that.

You're most welcome to friend me. I'll friend you right back, if you don't mind. :)