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

[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:)

[extrapenguin]

For me it's a consumption vs. creation mindset.
Ooh, this hits on the issue nicely! Yeah, when there's more to consume, I'll be there consuming, while if there's nothing (or, I suppose, if nothing is to my tastes) I'm more likely to be creating.

The community aspect is another thing. I find myself much more willing to comment and reach out for rarer/more niche stuff, since person who likes the same rare thing! Whereas with people who like the megafandom juggernaut, it's like eh, that's person #9871 today who likes that thing. And megafandoms are more likely to already have the lines drawn in the sand and all the friend groups be insulated from one another due to terrible wanks that went down in ages past.

Some sites restrict the usage of the / character in tags (tumblr, frex), so I understand using portmanteaus along the lines of Finnpoe. When it gets to stuff like Reylo (vs Reykylo) or Beefleaf (vs ??? I have no idea who these people are, other than that they're from TGCF) I am significantly more annoyed. Though with really long names character limits on e.g. Twitter are likely to lead to abbreviation... Let's all just return to DW?