STAHP. JUST STAHP.
ugh. I am really tired of good meta - or bad meta, tbh - or tags or mini-fics or whatever ending with BUT WHAT DOES IT MATTER. NO ONE CARES. NO ONE WILL WRITE THIS. BECAUSE STEREK. ALL STEREK’S FAULT.
like -
(and I hate smushnames but JUST THIS ONCE)
yes okay there are a lot of things to be said about sterek as a pairing and sterek as a fandom, and some of those things are valid criticisms and some of those things are opinions, and on one hand I get it can be really annoying to be in a fandom with 8k of fic and only a fraction of that being your pairing (why so little Klaus/Stefen, TVD fandom? Why so little??). but there is also so. much. bitching. and so many erroneous conclusions as to what sterek and sterek shippers are (not) doing to your corner of fandom?
I mean, hello, every time someone writes a sterek fic doesn’t mean that a scott/allison fic or an erica/stiles fic or a derek/peter fic or a whatsit/whosit fic gets deleted off the internet 5ever in some weird balance of the universe. it also seems weird - well, no, it seems stupid and illogical - to assume that if people weren’t writing sterek they’d be writing your pairing? here’s a thought: maybe they wouldn’t be in this fandom at all! or maybe they’d be writing adrian/gerard! part of this goes back to my highly scientific post over my disbelief that some people seem to think stamping your feet and whining for fic and art is going to do anything, but whaaaaat even makes people think that sterek is this gigantic vacuum slowly sucking up all the fandom’s collective creative juices.
ALL OF THIS. I ship damn near everything in this fandom, which naturally includes a metric fuckton of rarepairs, with my OTP being Scott/Isaac and my ultimate ship being poly!pack. I would EXPLODE WITH GLEE should the fandom start producing Scott/Isaac at even half the rate it produces Stiles/Derek. If I find a poly!pack fic anywhere, of any length or quality, I make honest-to-god out-loud squeaky noises. I desperately, desperately want there to be more of these ships in particular and non-Stiles/Derek ships in general.
But that doesn’t mean that I want less Stiles/Derek. Why should it? Like Amanda says, people producing Stiles/Derek doesn’t mean that they’re somehow prevented from writing a rarepair which they would otherwise have written if not for the Sterek juggernaut. People write Stiles/Derek because they like Stiles/Derek. Fuck, I like Stiles/Derek and have even written a fic for them - but I’ve also written plenty of other ships because I like them too. It’s not Sterek vs. rarepairs - you can like and read and write both. Look at some of the BNFs: Saucery, who also ships Peter/Stiles heavily, along with Scott/Isaac, Erica/Boyd and just about anything she sees (if she ever write that Sheriff Stilinski/Isaac thing she mentioned I will DIE in the best way); Daunt just put out a reclist of Scott/Stiles and Scott/Allison/Stiles; 1001cranes from whom I reblogged this is perhaps most known for her Stiles/Derek, but is also very into Peter/Stiles and has written rarepairs like Derek/Isaac and Peter/Isaac, even Jackson/Matt, plus a couple of gangbangs which I heartily approve of.
It is true that the fandom is dominated by Stiles/Derek. But, in the vein of Amanda’s point about whining not doing anything, that’s why I write a lot of rarepairs - because I feel the need for them. If I want Stiles/Derek, good Stiles/Derek, I can have it easily, because there’s so much fic about them and a good portion of it written by talented authors.
By contrast, you would not believe the stuff I have read to get my Scott/Isaac fix (or maybe, if you’re a fellow shipper, you would). I lower my standards considerably for rarepairs because while there is some very good stuff, there just isn’t enough to be picky. However, since I subscribe to the school of ‘If you want a job done properly, do it yourself’ (everyone was thankful when I no longer did subjects where we had to work in groups), while enjoying other peoples’ efforts, instead of whinging about low numbers, I have been helping to fill the gaps myself with my own ideas about my ships.
And the thing is, fic begets fic! Same goes for art and meta, because people see your fic/art/meta, and they start thinking. Good fic/art/meta gives you feels, and we all know that fandom runs on feels. Feels are what induce you to start shipping something - how many times have we seen ‘read a fic about x pairing, think I’m shipping it now’? - and feels about a ship are what induces you to start producing fic and art and meta for that ship. In creating things featuring your ship, you influence the people who view it, your fellow fans - you influence the fandom.
So go forth, my lovelies, and ship, ship, ship!
(Source: 1001-cranes)
