Here's a first
Dec. 19th, 2020 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marmota_bI've just unsubscribed from a story that's actually quite good.
But I have not read the past I'm not sure how many chapters, and when I saw the alert for another one in my inbox, I just felt tired, and like "not another one"; not in the least excited to read it.
I realised, as I impulsively headed over to unsubscribe, that it's because the ongoing story isn't what I signed up for when I started reading. I started reading what the description still says: the story of a friendship between two characters (ETA: With languages! I forgot that part, but that was the main thing that pulled me in.). Instead, what the writer is now posting is a multicharacter multichapter prequel to canon.
Which is no doubt a good thing in its own right, but it's not what I signed up for. I think I have only a limited number of space in my life for long ongoing stories, and I guess a large portion of it is occupied by my own... and among those of other writers, those that do interesting worldbuilding things get precedence.
(I'm currently, among other things, subscribed to Deliver Us by Bittodeath, a Star Wars AU in which Obi Wan is raising Force-sensitive Clones and becomes Mandalorian and... while I'm not sure everything in it is entirely my cup of tea it absolutely does do interesting worldbuilding things. ETA 03/2021: Unsubscribed from that as well for a while now because the things that are not my cup of tea started outweighing the ones that are, and one really does not have much filtering ability left these days.)
ETA: Also considering unsubscribing from another Mandalorian Obi-Wan AU series now that the author put all members of a found family (Obi-Wan/Jango + Boba + Luke) in gay relationships.
That train of thought, of course, gave me pause. Analysing my thoughts on the matter, I conclude it's not the gay relationships as such, it's because they make it boring. It makes for a less diverse set of characters. Not just because of the sexuality as such - frankly I'm not overly invested in the shipping side of fandom so if that remains mostly a well-written relationship in the background of a story that actually makes me invested in the relationship (which the Obi-Wan/Jango side of things does) / just part of the whole scene, I would not mind that much either way; and vice versa, if a straight relationship took over too much I would also mind.
What bothers me about the reveal of two more gay relationships in close succession is actually because they come in the tracks of killing off (or at least seemingly killing off) a major female character (Ahsoka). So suddenly a fascinating alien female cast member left and a new human male I have no particular interest in entered the scene, and it's boring.
*shrug*
Mostly writing this down as warnings to myself as a writer.
(It's a good thing I went into The Peridan Chronicles already knowing it was going to be a long haul. I'd hate to do a bait and switch like that to my readers. Generally I refuse to start publishing a story without having at least an approximate idea where it's going; it has the added benefit that even when I end up stuck - which I often do - knowing where I want to go with it means that despite appearances, I don't abandon stories.)
But I have not read the past I'm not sure how many chapters, and when I saw the alert for another one in my inbox, I just felt tired, and like "not another one"; not in the least excited to read it.
I realised, as I impulsively headed over to unsubscribe, that it's because the ongoing story isn't what I signed up for when I started reading. I started reading what the description still says: the story of a friendship between two characters (ETA: With languages! I forgot that part, but that was the main thing that pulled me in.). Instead, what the writer is now posting is a multicharacter multichapter prequel to canon.
Which is no doubt a good thing in its own right, but it's not what I signed up for. I think I have only a limited number of space in my life for long ongoing stories, and I guess a large portion of it is occupied by my own... and among those of other writers, those that do interesting worldbuilding things get precedence.
(I'm currently, among other things, subscribed to Deliver Us by Bittodeath, a Star Wars AU in which Obi Wan is raising Force-sensitive Clones and becomes Mandalorian and... while I'm not sure everything in it is entirely my cup of tea it absolutely does do interesting worldbuilding things. ETA 03/2021: Unsubscribed from that as well for a while now because the things that are not my cup of tea started outweighing the ones that are, and one really does not have much filtering ability left these days.)
ETA: Also considering unsubscribing from another Mandalorian Obi-Wan AU series now that the author put all members of a found family (Obi-Wan/Jango + Boba + Luke) in gay relationships.
That train of thought, of course, gave me pause. Analysing my thoughts on the matter, I conclude it's not the gay relationships as such, it's because they make it boring. It makes for a less diverse set of characters. Not just because of the sexuality as such - frankly I'm not overly invested in the shipping side of fandom so if that remains mostly a well-written relationship in the background of a story that actually makes me invested in the relationship (which the Obi-Wan/Jango side of things does) / just part of the whole scene, I would not mind that much either way; and vice versa, if a straight relationship took over too much I would also mind.
What bothers me about the reveal of two more gay relationships in close succession is actually because they come in the tracks of killing off (or at least seemingly killing off) a major female character (Ahsoka). So suddenly a fascinating alien female cast member left and a new human male I have no particular interest in entered the scene, and it's boring.
*shrug*
Mostly writing this down as warnings to myself as a writer.
(It's a good thing I went into The Peridan Chronicles already knowing it was going to be a long haul. I'd hate to do a bait and switch like that to my readers. Generally I refuse to start publishing a story without having at least an approximate idea where it's going; it has the added benefit that even when I end up stuck - which I often do - knowing where I want to go with it means that despite appearances, I don't abandon stories.)