The Poster Boy for *what* now?

[krossero]

Okay, I just read another story that has Jim as the poster boy for 'gay America'.  What has me cracking up is that just an hour ago, I read one that calls him the poster boy for straight America.

So, question #1:  Which do you think is more accurate to call Jim a poster boy of, gay, or straight America?

Question #2:  Does it bug you when a theme or a phrase like this is re-used in fanfiction?  Personally, I love to see everybody's take on different things.

Question #3: What other repeated things like this have you noticed (I can think of a few), and do they annoy you, or do you like it?

Comments

"Big Guy"

[alyburns.livejournal.com]

DOES have a history though. Two writers (Nightowl being one of them), aftr hearing Joel being called "Big Guy" thought it was a natural that Blair would pick it up and use it for Jim, so that's what they did in a story. Others at the time and who knew the origins, embraced it and agreed that it was likely Blair would do something like that.

Unfortunately, new folks come in, don't know the history, and many start writing before seeing the show, so make certain assumptions about fanon versus canon.

Not much we can do about that - but through efforts like these to educate about the origins and allow writers to then decide if they agree and use it or not. I never really did - I figured he'd come up with other terms that would be similar! LOL! He, with his gift for gab! LOL!

Re: "Big Guy"

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

I have a single file of all the transcripts and searched it for 'big guy' a year or so back just to make sure Blair never used it. Jim says it to Joel once and there are a few random mentions by secondary characters. When I see it capitalized and used every few sentences in some fics the editor in me groans.

I love the canonical 'little buddy' of The Debt (Blair to Jim) and that's rarely seen in fic, which baffles me. I wouldn't want it used all the time either, but at least it's a canonical nickname.

But I want to stress again that this is my own personal take on it; I'm not trying to enforce a ban on fanon favourites ::g::

Re: "Big Guy"

[alyburns.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree - I was just giving the history and explaining that once folks read something they like, they're going to borrow it and then you start reading everything and there it is, seemingly over and over again. :)