Popularity vs Inspiration

[extrapenguin]

Does anyone else feel like they have much more creation-energy (writing fic, meta, etc) for rare canons and rarepairs than for juggernauts? I keep thinking I should post some sorta-meta for Star Wars, but keep putting it off, and while I do ship Obi-Wan/Anakin* I have written a grand total of zero fics for that. Meanwhile my current favorite pool noodle of a ship, Anakin/Mace, has 6 things I have contributed to the tag and I actually have further ideas for that. IDK. It's like the more popular something is, the more likely I am to go "eh, that's been done already" and go think about something else. This is probably related to me not liking to repeat myself thematically/plotwise – there are themes and such I return to, but I have so many ideas, I'd rather write something that I haven't already written a form of.

* As a side note, I hate the smushname. In this age of fictionkin, every time I see Obikin I have a moment of panic of the "oh no, does this person believe they are Obi-Wan Kenobi on the astral plane?" sort.

Comments

[trobadora]

Yeah - there's more of a drive to get my thoughts out of my head and into fic or meta when no one else has already talked about the thing in question, or posted fifty similar fics yet. I don't spend less time thinking about it, because when I get obsessed I get obsessed, but wiith a really popular thing I can have all those thoughts while reading and reacting to what other people have already posted, and I get to spend a lot of time in that headspace and share it with others without having to initiate anything. *g*

[extrapenguin]

Interesting point about initiating! Yes, I think about popular things (well, a subset of popular things) but don't initiate – or necessarily even communicate with others about it, actually? Hm. I guess rarity makes me more likely to interact, since if there are fewer people who like X than Y each interaction comes across as more precious?

[trobadora]

I do interact if I'm really into something, no matter how popular, but yeah, rarity adds an additional impetus.