Hmmm...it sounds like a painful process! ^^; Laid out like that, it does make sense - thank you, you've made it a lot clearer to me!
I think the reason I have trouble understanding it myself is because pairings aren't my default setting for fanning. If my preferred char is in a canon romance (or canon subtext, as with McShep) with a char I dislike, then I'll just avoid it in favor of gen relationships I do like. (It's also the case that it's pretty unusual for me to dislike a char - I'm often neutral about some chars, but that only rarely devolves into character hate. It's more often true for me that I'll detest a pairing while not actually disliking either char in it, in which case I tend to just avoid the pairing-fic and go for gen readings of the relationship as much as possible.)
But you're right, I have read earlier-season McShep stories where the author pretty clearly didn't like John (a lot of the post-Trinity stuff.) They're uncomfortable for me to read, because I do love John, too, and get upset when he's portrayed in such a negative light...grovelfic just isn't my cup of tea; I prefer relationship strife to be a mutual thing, with neither/both parties at fault.
Out of curiosity, when this happens - do you make an attempt to like the hated character, try to re-evaluate how you see them or reform their characterizations in your fic? Or do you just grit your teeth and bear it?
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I think the reason I have trouble understanding it myself is because pairings aren't my default setting for fanning. If my preferred char is in a canon romance (or canon subtext, as with McShep) with a char I dislike, then I'll just avoid it in favor of gen relationships I do like. (It's also the case that it's pretty unusual for me to dislike a char - I'm often neutral about some chars, but that only rarely devolves into character hate. It's more often true for me that I'll detest a pairing while not actually disliking either char in it, in which case I tend to just avoid the pairing-fic and go for gen readings of the relationship as much as possible.)
But you're right, I have read earlier-season McShep stories where the author pretty clearly didn't like John (a lot of the post-Trinity stuff.) They're uncomfortable for me to read, because I do love John, too, and get upset when he's portrayed in such a negative light...grovelfic just isn't my cup of tea; I prefer relationship strife to be a mutual thing, with neither/both parties at fault.
Out of curiosity, when this happens - do you make an attempt to like the hated character, try to re-evaluate how you see them or reform their characterizations in your fic? Or do you just grit your teeth and bear it?