Hm. I know what you mean, but I also know that...OK, I write, like the most divisive character in the fandom. There are people out there who love Spike to pieces and are excellent writers. Despite having great love and sympathy for the character, they still write Spike in a way that I really, really don't like. I'm not talking about cracked-out AU fics, either; there are classic Spike fics that make me wince. If I wrote Spike that way, it would be because I didn't like him. But I know for a fact that they do like him–just not in the same way or for the same reasons I do.
There are also people who can't stand a particular character or ship, or are indifferent to them, and who try to do them justice nonetheless. These two types of stories do have distinctly different feels to them, and they bother me in different ways. I'm not sure the second type bothers me more–-in fact, I'm sure it doesn't, because with those, I can always go "OK, you don't like X. That explains it." But if someone does love X, just an X who is, to my mind, some weird what-show-were-you-watching? version of X? When I read such a story, it sometimes makes me almost queasy with the wrongness of it. (And that is exactly what the pro authors who go batshit about fanfic feel. Therefore I sympathize with them even though I disagree with the batshit part.)
But I can't fault the authors for writing them, either way, because, well, heck, I can't bitch at someone for doing what I do myself. There are no characters I hate, (Ok, maybe Eve and the Third Potential On The Left) but there are certainly characters and ships I don't find easy to write, or whom I don't think I get, or whom I don't find as interesting as some of the others. I'm pretty sure that fans of those characters are going to find my depiction wanting. But it's a catch-22; if I never write them, I'll never learn to write them better.
It's been my experience that the more I write a character, the better I like them. But this doesn't mean that the character that I grow to like and feel that I get is going to meet with the approval of everyone else who likes that character–especially if I've worked out my version in relative isolation from other big fans of that character. I love Xander. I love writing Xander. His voice comes easily to me and I feel like I get him. But I'm pretty sure that my portrayal of Xander would not meet the approval of the Xander Fan Community, because I'm not seeing Xander in the same way they see him, or through the lens of shared perceptions and analysis that any fan subgroup will develop over time.
This bothers me, because I want to be all things to all people, dammit! But realistically, there's not a lot I can do about it. I can try to write every character as truly as I can, but as that Pilate guy said, truth is squishy.
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There are also people who can't stand a particular character or ship, or are indifferent to them, and who try to do them justice nonetheless. These two types of stories do have distinctly different feels to them, and they bother me in different ways. I'm not sure the second type bothers me more–-in fact, I'm sure it doesn't, because with those, I can always go "OK, you don't like X. That explains it." But if someone does love X, just an X who is, to my mind, some weird what-show-were-you-watching? version of X? When I read such a story, it sometimes makes me almost queasy with the wrongness of it. (And that is exactly what the pro authors who go batshit about fanfic feel. Therefore I sympathize with them even though I disagree with the batshit part.)
But I can't fault the authors for writing them, either way, because, well, heck, I can't bitch at someone for doing what I do myself. There are no characters I hate, (Ok, maybe Eve and the Third Potential On The Left) but there are certainly characters and ships I don't find easy to write, or whom I don't think I get, or whom I don't find as interesting as some of the others. I'm pretty sure that fans of those characters are going to find my depiction wanting. But it's a catch-22; if I never write them, I'll never learn to write them better.
It's been my experience that the more I write a character, the better I like them. But this doesn't mean that the character that I grow to like and feel that I get is going to meet with the approval of everyone else who likes that character–especially if I've worked out my version in relative isolation from other big fans of that character. I love Xander. I love writing Xander. His voice comes easily to me and I feel like I get him. But I'm pretty sure that my portrayal of Xander would not meet the approval of the Xander Fan Community, because I'm not seeing Xander in the same way they see him, or through the lens of shared perceptions and analysis that any fan subgroup will develop over time.
This bothers me, because I want to be all things to all people, dammit! But realistically, there's not a lot I can do about it. I can try to write every character as truly as I can, but as that Pilate guy said, truth is squishy.