More Fandom Thoughts

[muccamukk]

Which 1) are again brought on by Hawaii Five-0 fandom, and 2) which I realise no one reads. However, I enjoy writing such things, scroll past as you like.

Mostly this is me rambling about shows I don't slash and why. Partly brought on by the NHE Moments thing that's been going around, and partly by me trying to figure out why I'm attracted to so little fic for my shiny new show.

I don't ship Steve/Danny in Hawaii Five-0. It's not that I don't see that they're slashy, I totally do. The problem is that they're too slashy. For the same reason, I never especially shipped the leads in the two other two buddy cop shows I was in the fandom for, which were both, incidentally, way, way slashier than this. When I was in The Sentinel and Starsky & Hutch fandoms, I read almost exclusively gen, with a reasonable bit a het and very, very occasionally slash.

I think the reason for this is very similar to the ones behind this week's rise in Rachel hate, or Rachel resentment at least.

In episode 1.23, all our h/c dreams are realised, but for all that Steve gets to be Very Concerned, and get called Uncle Steve by Danny's daughter, and no one blinks an eye at him taking Grace in until Danny gets better, and then Danny says they've gotten very close and they hug (slightly awkwardly with a lot of back patting), it's Rachel that gets the relationship stuff. She gets to rush home from another island, and tell Danny she cares about him, and fall asleep curled up next to him, and kiss him on the cheek, and get about three hugs. She leaves Danny grinning and in love, and that's not sub text, that's text. She has the potential to get in canon something that everyone, save for the tinhat contingent, knows that Steve is never going to get: a romantic relationship with Danny.

So while I'm not behind the resentment directed at Rachel right now, I can see where it's coming from.

I feel a similar way about slash for shows where guys are totally living in each other's pockets (which I don't think Steve and Danny really do, but whatever). I see that and fandom all squeefull that they must be gay, omg, and read fic about how everyone knew they were gay because it was so obvious, omg, and I find myself resenting it.

Canon does not present Steve or Danny as gay or bi. All we see, all we'll ever see, is them in opposite-sex relationships. The same goes for the rest of the cast (I had been holding out some hope for Chin, but that was blown half way through the season). This is made very clear by the writers, and I'm pretty sure it's what they intend. I guess it's possible one or more of the could turn out to be bisexual, but I'm not holding my breath.

Maybe I'm just old and cranky, but I'm tired of having to subvert things, and I'm tired of smug squee about how characters are totally gay when, no, actually, they aren't.

All of which is to say that I'm not anti-slash, obviously. I read and write slash, though perhaps less than I used to. I just stick to less "obvious" fandoms because they make me less bitter, and stick to gen and het for my buddy cops.

Comments

[marinarusalka]

I don't have Rachel resentment, but I kind of have resentment against the writers now. I was really enjoying the story of Danny and Rachel as a divorced couple making the effort to put their issues behind them, remain friends, and raise their kid together. It's not the sort of storyline I ever see on TV, at least not in the kind of show I normally watch, and it went a long way toward convincing me that Danny is mature adult even if he acts like a twelve-year-old much of the time. And now they're going to make it into a romance just like the ten million other romances I've seen before. Sigh.

[muccamukk]

I'm kind of meh about it too, really. Mostly because they got divorced for a reason, bitterly, bitterly so, and I see no evidence that Danny at least has changed (and I'm pretty sure Rachel hasn't either). They're just going to confuse the kidlet.

[marinarusalka]

Yeah, they really haven't built up any reasons for me to think that a relationship that went down in flames the last time will succeed this time around.

Also, Rachel has had two marriages fall apart in a relatively short time span. If I were her, I'd want a break from romantic relationships for a while.

[nenya_kanadka]

You are cranky and I love you. <3 I do get what you mean, though. Sometimes doing the subtext thing is so much work, effort that could be directed elsewhere.

My shippiness developed in a nonstandard fashion--for ages I was totally anti-slash for homophobic reasons, and then I seemed to jump straight to the femslash without stopping too long in boyslashland. I'm not emotionally invested in many m/m ships--perhaps Spock/McCoy a bit, but that's mostly because Foe!Yay and I think the pretty blueshirts should be together. I've never really understood the urge to find proof of one's ship on the show and somehow make it be true by force of will or collection of enough data points that somehow make the 'ship sail. Same goes for het ships, really. Either it sails in canon or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, then all the fanfic is AU. (And there is a fair amount of slash that I'll happily read, even with sex scenes in. If I am in the mood for boys.)

Of course, now that I've written that, I'm immediately going to think of a slash ship that I care about and look for evidence of. Ha. Ten/Jack? Sirius/Remus? I probably ship Sirius/Remus pretty hard, but only if Tonks gets her own happy ending. (If Buffy/Faith isn't canon, it's certainly not anti-canon. But then, compare Spike and Faith and you have the same problem as in your OP.)

Possibly why I still watch Gay Movies, even if a lot of them suck. Canon that admits QUILTBAG people exist is nice.