A line in the sand drawn here. No...here. Well...maybe here.
My blissfully restful week-off (made even more restful by the fact that my roomie and her kids went out of town) is over. Oh, it's still early in the evening, but I have to give a writing seminar first thing tomorrow morning and have classes and student conferences for the rest of the day, so I should really be getting offline and preparing
( Read more... )
I don't quite understand the tendency to pair off male characters, but I don't condemn it, it almost seems automatic to me. No, as I said, I've come to love the stories and the emotions conveyed so eloquently.
I have a thing for hurt/comfort, which used to worry me until I realized it's mostly the comfort that grabs me. I'd never wish for anything like that to happen to anyone in real life. That's why even rape/nc doesn't necessarily bother me if it's done a certain way, which sounds impossible.
I cannot get into RPS. I have a bit in one of my LJ entries about fandom and obsessions and me and one thing that I always do is maintain a strict division between the real person and the character. I am in love with Ray Kowalski. In reading some interviews and other things, I think I would really like Callum Keith Rennie, but does anyone really know him? So, I'm aware that I'm not in love with him, just in lust. Plus, he smokes, and that's been a real turn-off for me. As if it matters but I have been known to overlook that before. I've overlooked worse, if it suited my purpose, but that's a whole 'nother sordid tale.
Um, I think I strayed, didn't I? I've been rambling in LJ and must go to the living room and dodge land mines my elderly cat is leaving me in protest for spending so much time in the bedroom, behind closed doors, at the computer.
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It's funny you say that you "...don't quite understand the tendency to pair off male characters..." because I don't either. Or rather, I don't get the tendency to just randomly pair off characters for no reason. In my slash universe, characters *aren't* paired off unless there's at least as much canonical basis for their relationship (or future relationship) as is usually considered sufficient for the networks when they're setting up a *het* relationship.
The buddy-nature of many of the shows I watch means there's often an incredible intimacy betweeen two (or more) of the male characters (I say "male characters" because the majority of the interesting characters on most shows are male) and it's that intimacy -- characterized by marriage-like disputes, physical affection, obsessive worry about each other, joined-at-the-hipness, etc. -- that makes me believe that the jump to a romantic or sexual relationship wouldn't *really* be much of a jump, if any.
I suppose I'll continue to call non-canonical m/m relationships "slash" for convenience, but i really don't see the potential for love and/or sex in *their* relationships any different from most m/f t.v. relationships. As I wrote in a post a month or so again, when I first read slash I honestly didn't know I was supposed to be reacting as if it was something odd. It was like, "Okay, so here's the Kira/Odo story and here's the Garak/Bashir story and...oh...is the second one supposed to be stranger than the first?" *g*
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It's a vicious cycle, I won't let her in because I don't want her leaving me those presents in the bedroom (and she has in the past) and she's mad because I won't let her in.
It's funny you say that you "...don't quite understand the tendency to pair off male characters..." because I don't either. Or rather, I don't get the tendency to just randomly pair off characters for no reason. In my slash universe, characters *aren't* paired off unless there's at least as much canonical basis for their relationship (or future relationship) as is usually considered sufficient for the networks when they're setting up a *het* relationship.
You see, I haven't really followed any show or gotten really involved in anything, tv or movie, since Due South, so it "appears" to me that these pairings are random because I'm not familiar with the characters. That means that my original statement was from a narrow perspective and probably not fair at all. I never thought I'd think Fraser and Ray should be together, but I've been convinced by the writers. As I say to anyone who will listen, and those who are sorry they got me started, I relate to RayK in certain ways and his pairing with Fraser, and the way he feels he's beneath him (even though he isn't) is a perfect example of what I wish would happen for me. I always feel I'm beneath anyone and everyone. I need a Fraser to show me I'm not, if I'm not.
You know?
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