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askye at 11:27pm on 02/08/2002
askye at 11:27pm on 02/08/2002You want to know the ONE thing that bugs the crap out of me about Smallville fandom/fanfiction---the combined names. I HATE combined names. Hate them hate them hate them. It's a personal reaction---I was dating a guy and we were refered to by a combined name by the person who introduced us. When I heard that I wasn't an individual, I wasn't even half of a couple, I was somehow the same as the guy I was dating. We weren't two seperate entities but one entity.
So there's the gut,personal reaction. But also? Some of the combined names are just---I don't know--Clitney for god's sake why? I've seen that and I'm assuming that's Clark and Whitney and it's just...well for one it brings out the stupid Beevis and Butthead aspect of me "heh heh they said Clitney". And second, if it is Clark and Whitney...they don't have that part of the anatomy, so you know.
I realize in Smallville you can't just do first initial/first initial because so many characters have the same first initial---but what is so hard about typing out Clark/Lex or Chloe/Lana or Clark/Whintey
bitchy
wrod
...there is absolutely NO logic to my reaction, is there? None. I perfectly understand why you've got a hair trigger to it, though, under the circumstances.
(no subject)
I really thought I was the only one, but honestly, is it that hard to *type out* Clark/Lex or Chloe/Clark. And even with the same first initials, it's not like the names don't have *other fucking letters* in them. Like, *second* letters. I would know that Ch/Le is Chloe/Lex and not Chloe/Lana, you know? Or that Cl/La is Clark/Lana, not Chloe/Lana or Chloe/Lex.
So. Yeah. What you said.
(no subject)
I do like the idea of the first two initials, it works out well Ch/Le, and for some you'd only need first two initials, first initial, Ch/W for example.
(no subject)
I know that off in Harry Potter fandom, we use both initials, and it makes it pretty simple to figure out who is who. Applied to Smallville fandom it would be a bit different, given you have 3 characters with the same initials, but Lex would become LX, Lana LA, and Lionel LL, and the rest of the characters have unique initials.
Although, really, Clark/Lex, et al really aren't much hassle, really. Just, you know, pointing out another alternative.
(no subject)
Using the smooshed name convention reifies the relationship as a separate entity from the members of it. (postmodernism yay!) And I think that's a thing people did before the smooshed names (which, AFAIK, are originally a BBS thing, not a SV thing). At the very least, when people started identifying themselves as shippers in The X Files, it's clear to me that the relationship between the leads is at least as important to a shipper's fannish relationship to the show as either lead character is.
And I'm firmly on the side of not throwing stones about how other people pursue their fannishness, inasmuch as I spend hours of my day talking, thinking, and reading about the emotional underpinnings of Superman-to-be and his best friend/proto-boyfriend/archnemesis-to-be
(no subject)
Personally, I'm amused by it (people can be so easily amused in so many different ways, don't you know), and that's why I do it, not because it's easier to type.
I agree with witchqueen that it is handy to use "Clex" to refer to the relationship between Clark and Lex--when you're *not* talking about Clark and Lex as individuals.
I also like how it's a dumb little thing that people within fandom get. Like when you have a club as a kid, and people get code names and there's a club handshake and everything. It's just what happens in most fandoms, and I understand that it could be done less goofily and thereby annoy fewer people if the "code" words were just pairing initials like Cl/Le, but I personally like reading stuff, abbreviations or whatever, that I can hear in my head. Clex is much more pronounceable than Cl/Le.
And "Clitney" is preposterous, yes. That's why I like it. I wouldn't ever use that word when I wanted to talk about the pairing seriously, though.
(no subject)
Again, it's a personal pet peeve of mine and one I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. In fact I was surprised that the comments I recieved were agreeing with me.
(no subject)
spike, mas puerile
(no subject)
And yes, I giggle at Clitney. (More like 13-year-old humour there, but who's counting?) I don't really like the idea of Lex/Hamilton, but it amuses me that if they got together -- since the good doctor's first name is Steven -- it would bring new meaning to Sex.
But I won't try too hard if there's not a funny new name to be made out of the two partners'. I mean, seriously, how would you combine "Jonathan" and "Lionel" and not have it look silly in an unfunny way?
You were right to be offended when your and your ex's names were smooshed together, because the context of that was completely different. But these are fictional characters, after all, no matter how real they sometimes seem to us, and if it's all in good fun? Hey, if I wasn't having fun, I wouldn't be here.
(no subject)
I'm not really considering my situation with my ex and the characters as the same, I was just throwing that in as background info about my pet peeve.
And really, it's just my little pet peeve. I've always been irked by smooshed together names, it doesn't run along my style of humor, and many times I just can't stand the way they sound.
So you know, personal issue. And I'm not humorless, but that sort of thing doesn't run along my sense of humor. I have a very strange sense of humor.
(no subject)
I understand about the personal peeve. And humour is much more subjective than people generally want to admit; look at how many people don't find, for example, Monty Python or the films of Kevin Smith amusing, or conversely, how many people are amused by the likes of Tom Greene. (And I'm betting you'll disagree with me on at least one of those.)
(no subject)
I've never really watch Tom Greene so I can't offer up an opinion.