in which I do not ship things
So. X-Men First Class. Definite racefail. Definite sexism. (see this plurk for some details) ...definite large amounts of Magneto. Definite kudos for the set decorators.
I think these things can be agreed on. The part where I disagree with most of my internet friends is regarding the relationship between Professor X and Magneto. A lot of people have come back from this movie thinking there is overwhelming romantic subtext between them. I didn't.
What I saw was a privileged young man with a history of adopting and helping (in his way, which is not always best) strays encounter a more challenging case than he had faced before. And a young man with very few connections in this world encounter someone who can to a certain extent understand and help him. I saw two people using each other- strategically (for power, for a way to get at a goal) and emotionally (to feel better about yourself, to gain control). I don't find this romantic or sexual. And frankly, I don't want to find it romantic or sexual, because I think it would be a lot less interesting.
See, when a canon offers me a way to see something as non-romantic, odds are I'll take it. X-Men First Class presented me with that pretty much right off, through the way I could see the characters. Which meant that when I saw the stuff later in the movie, it was still non-romantic to me. Just as when I rewatch the first few episodes of Princess Tutu, I don't see sexual subtext between Fakir and Mytho because I know from the later episodes that Fakir's relationship with Mytho encompasses a whole host of different, complex feelings (protective instincts, guilt, a direction in life, serious fear). In the case of Fakir and Mytho, I actually can get genuinely angry at people who have seen the whole series and still ship them, because I feel that if you simplify Fakir's feelings to romantic love or sexual attraction you are missing a huge part of his character, and thus a lot of what the show is doing.
And when a canon offers me very little romance, I like it that way. One of the things I tend to mention most when promoting Michelle West's Sun Sword series is how even though it is giant it has almost no romance and instead focuses on familial relationships, adopted familial relationships, friendships, and ways of using others.
I know that a lot of people find fictional romance satisfying, and I'm not here to bash that. If that's what you want, cool. Sometimes I ship things terribly! And sometimes what I do is basically reverse shipping, casting something that has a good chance of being romantic in a deliberately unromantic light, because that's what I want. There are a lot more relationships in life than romance and enmity, and personally I look for that in my fiction.
I think these things can be agreed on. The part where I disagree with most of my internet friends is regarding the relationship between Professor X and Magneto. A lot of people have come back from this movie thinking there is overwhelming romantic subtext between them. I didn't.
What I saw was a privileged young man with a history of adopting and helping (in his way, which is not always best) strays encounter a more challenging case than he had faced before. And a young man with very few connections in this world encounter someone who can to a certain extent understand and help him. I saw two people using each other- strategically (for power, for a way to get at a goal) and emotionally (to feel better about yourself, to gain control). I don't find this romantic or sexual. And frankly, I don't want to find it romantic or sexual, because I think it would be a lot less interesting.
See, when a canon offers me a way to see something as non-romantic, odds are I'll take it. X-Men First Class presented me with that pretty much right off, through the way I could see the characters. Which meant that when I saw the stuff later in the movie, it was still non-romantic to me. Just as when I rewatch the first few episodes of Princess Tutu, I don't see sexual subtext between Fakir and Mytho because I know from the later episodes that Fakir's relationship with Mytho encompasses a whole host of different, complex feelings (protective instincts, guilt, a direction in life, serious fear). In the case of Fakir and Mytho, I actually can get genuinely angry at people who have seen the whole series and still ship them, because I feel that if you simplify Fakir's feelings to romantic love or sexual attraction you are missing a huge part of his character, and thus a lot of what the show is doing.
And when a canon offers me very little romance, I like it that way. One of the things I tend to mention most when promoting Michelle West's Sun Sword series is how even though it is giant it has almost no romance and instead focuses on familial relationships, adopted familial relationships, friendships, and ways of using others.
I know that a lot of people find fictional romance satisfying, and I'm not here to bash that. If that's what you want, cool. Sometimes I ship things terribly! And sometimes what I do is basically reverse shipping, casting something that has a good chance of being romantic in a deliberately unromantic light, because that's what I want. There are a lot more relationships in life than romance and enmity, and personally I look for that in my fiction.