Then again, I prefer an intact fourth wall between me and the people and minds I adore because my fannish desires do not always reflect the things I actually want to see. Plus, I don't like the feeling of being observed while I'm playing in my little sandbox.
Yes, both of these things. Plus, I really enjoy non-canon pairings -- as soon as something becomes officially canon, the probability wave collapses, and there's less space to play. (I tend to write canon setting fic, rather than AUs, so.) My current fandom is the Cdrama Guardian, which is a show based on a m/m novel. Because of censorship, the pairing isn't officially canon, but the entire story is built around them, and it's (as one person described it) a firehose of slash. I love it! :D
(I also love actual queer rep, of course! I just don't tend to get fannish about it in the writing-fic kind of way.)
Do you actively try to avoid this BTS knowledge while engaging with other fans about the shows you watch, or do you engage with them in situations and contexts where this BTS knowledge is either absent or unneeded? I genuinely find it hard to imagine fandom spaces that don't also invite discussions of all these other aspects but I'm guessing your fandom environment might already be cultivated in a way corresponding to your preferences.
Ha! Yeah, it's a weird mode of engagement in this day and age. My strategy is to stick to Dreamwidth, only follow people who don't talk about the BTS stuff on their journals (or who cut-tag, or tag consistently enough that I can filter it out), and I have a plug-in for Firefox that replaces the actor's names with a different text string, so if I see that, I start skimming or back button.
It started because I was trying to avoid falling into any more RPS pairings (my partner's squicked by RPS, and I'm someone who can't shut up about my fandoms, lol), but now I find that thinking about BTS stuff disrupts my suspension of disbelief to the point it makes it hard to watch the show in an immersive way. (I don't want to be thinking about the acting or the production; I want to be feeling the characters. If that makes sense.) I don't have this problem nearly as much with shows I'm not fannish about, though.
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Yes, both of these things. Plus, I really enjoy non-canon pairings -- as soon as something becomes officially canon, the probability wave collapses, and there's less space to play. (I tend to write canon setting fic, rather than AUs, so.) My current fandom is the Cdrama Guardian, which is a show based on a m/m novel. Because of censorship, the pairing isn't officially canon, but the entire story is built around them, and it's (as one person described it) a firehose of slash. I love it! :D
(I also love actual queer rep, of course! I just don't tend to get fannish about it in the writing-fic kind of way.)
Do you actively try to avoid this BTS knowledge while engaging with other fans about the shows you watch, or do you engage with them in situations and contexts where this BTS knowledge is either absent or unneeded? I genuinely find it hard to imagine fandom spaces that don't also invite discussions of all these other aspects but I'm guessing your fandom environment might already be cultivated in a way corresponding to your preferences.
Ha! Yeah, it's a weird mode of engagement in this day and age. My strategy is to stick to Dreamwidth, only follow people who don't talk about the BTS stuff on their journals (or who cut-tag, or tag consistently enough that I can filter it out), and I have a plug-in for Firefox that replaces the actor's names with a different text string, so if I see that, I start skimming or back button.
It started because I was trying to avoid falling into any more RPS pairings (my partner's squicked by RPS, and I'm someone who can't shut up about my fandoms, lol), but now I find that thinking about BTS stuff disrupts my suspension of disbelief to the point it makes it hard to watch the show in an immersive way. (I don't want to be thinking about the acting or the production; I want to be feeling the characters. If that makes sense.) I don't have this problem nearly as much with shows I'm not fannish about, though.