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

[china_shop]

Oh yeah, I much prefer uncharted territory, and rarer ships and fandoms have more of that. It's one of the reasons I'm not reading much in my fandom(s), too, because I don't want to be put off my WIPs by seeing other people's similar things; if I keep my blinkers on, I can pretend that all my ideas are blazingly original and shiny. ;-p

[isis]

Hah, yeah, same. I haven't been into a juggernaut ship since my Eagle days (so that's ten years ago) and haven't been into a juggernaut ship in a megafandom since due South (twelvish years ago). It's definitely the tiny fandoms and minor characters that catch my eye and make me want to create the content which nobody else has.

[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*

[cyberbrain]

Yes, me! I'm like that, it turns out. I've liked plenty of "popular ships" but I never had a strong urge to create (and, most importantly, finish) anything. I'm kind of going through this, um, phenomenon, with my current fandom too.
So, yep, I feel you.

[shadaras]

Oh, definitely. It's part of why I've mostly been getting into small fandoms lately, and a little bit why I don't actually browse fic in the larger/more active fandoms I'm into? Like, for those either I can create works or I can read them, but it's hard to do both.

[plingo_kat]

Completely agree! For me it's a consumption vs. creation mindset. In large fandoms/pairings there's so much out there that sates what I want out of fic that I can just read happily, but in rarepairs you gotta make it yourself. There's also the community aspect, where in smaller groups it's more likely people enthusiastically welcome new people. I've very rarely made personal connections in megafandoms because I'm less likely to randomly speak up or reach out in such large groups.

(I also don't like portmanteaus, mostly because it can make it hard to search for pairings between platforms. Does somebody tag their art by the portmanteau, or by full name/full name, or what? Sometimes I can't even figure out what the portmanteau is. D:)

[lannamichaels]

Yeah, there was an old guard fic I never polished off because I didn't have much enthusiasm for it and part of that was 'I am sure a thousand people have done this exact same thing'.

[tinny]

Does anyone else feel like they have much more creation-energy (writing fic, meta, etc) for rare canons and rarepairs than for juggernauts?

Yes! And for the exact same reasons. Guardian only kept me this long because it was tiny when I started out.