Unpopular Fannish Opinion about Something I've Seen in a Lot of H50 Fan Fic
My flircle is all thinky about all kinds of stuff today. I need to go grocery shop because there really is no food in the house post trip. (There hasn't been since I got back, but I made do, but I really need actual food, which means leaving the house.)
So while I'm working on my WisCon report, I'll post this. It's not thinky. It's a rant, on utterly not thinky things.
I know that I have a ridiculously high standard of getting the details right in fic. I know this. But this thing about Danny's apartment being crappy seems to be becoming a fanon thing, and it's driving me to real annoyance.
Dear H50 Fan Fiction Writers:
Danny's apartment is not a rat-infested stinkhole of doom. It's small, sure. But he's a cop in Hawaii. In a big city. On a beach. On an island that is almost a 6 hour flight from Los Angeles.
Do you know what that kind of distance from the lower 48 does to prices for things?
Have you even glanced at housing prices in the Honolulu area? Do you have any idea how much higher prices for basic goods are on an island or other geographically isolated areas (like Alaska)? The cost of living there is quite high, and cops--even detectives--don't make that much money.
I know that a lot of people who write don't live in major cities, but let's talk about apartment rental prices and what they get to be like the closer you get to the beach and the bigger the city you live in.
(I may know a little something about this, living, as I do, within walking distance of the beach in a major metro area. In fact, I live in the second largest metro statistical area in the United States, one that just happens to be on the Pacific Ocean.)
Steve has a single family home, on the beach, which seems to be skewing the scale for a lot of people. It's important to understand that Steve likely only has a house because his family has lived there long enough to have bought that house ages ago and then his dad died leaving it to the kids. Trust me: given its location and its size, that's a house that he couldn't afford today.
I don't know Hawaii real estate, but I'd bet it's kind of similar to coastal California. There are plenty of people where I live in so Cal who own nice sized single family homes who couldn't possibly afford to buy those homes now. (Do not get me started on Prop 13 since it's specific to California and not relevant to Hawaii. It's also messing with my state in bad ways. So grr.) Suffice to say that if it weren't for Prop 13, it's likely that my neighbor who worked at a grocery store in a non-managerial position his whole life wouldn't be able to afford his home.
I have a master's degree and a full time job, and a part time job, and I will likely never own property in the city I live in. (I live at the beach, BTW.) There are folks here who worked jobs that earned them a lot less money than I make who have houses, but they can afford them because they inherited them from family who bought them when the real estate market was much more reasonable. Or they had family to live with while they didn't pay rent and could save up.
(To be fair, if I stopped traveling entirely, I might be able to save up enough for a downpayment on a tiny condo, but since my family lives on the other coast, that whole not traveling thing isn't likely, even if I cut down all my recreational travel, which isn't a quality of life I want to live anyway.)
This is because I want to live in a coastal metro area.
Someone who is on his own without family financial support, like Danny, won't have a lot of spare money when he lives on an island. Have you looked at gas prices in Hawaii? Milk? No? Might be worth it. Chances are that they're a lot higher than the prices where you are right now. I know they're higher than the prices where I live now. Okay, maybe not the gas by much, but still.
It also kind of makes sense that a guy who's never home isn't going to waste his cash on a one bedroom or two bedroom apartment when he doesn't really like the place he's in anyway.
Also, can we please stop with the implication that he lives in a den in iniquity in general? Danny's apartment building is not a run-down building. It looks pretty much like 80% of the apartment buildings of that era I've seen in Los Angeles.
I've never been to Hawaii, but friends who have assure me that in terms of architecture, in many places in Hawaii, you'd think you were in so Cal. (It's the different attitude that lets you know where you are. Or the rainbows. Or the green stuff growing around you. LA being a desert and all.) I get the sense that this is especially true of parts of Honolulu. (I also get the sense that it's very different on other islands.)
(That style of architecture has kind of grown on me. I'm particularly fond of the prevalence of those louvered glass windows I was baffled by when I got to so Cal. You know, these things. I see 'em on H50and feel strangely at home now.
True story: My bathroom in my first (also beachy) apartment in so Cal had them, and as a recent arrival from a cold climate, I was baffled by them. (I might have looked at them, had flashbacks to storm windows and shrinkwrapping poorly insulated ones for the window, and said to myself "Toto, I don't think we're in the northeast anymore."))
I guess this bothers me so much because the internet means it's kind of easy to research this stuff. Check out craigslist to get an idea of what rental rates in a city in Hawaii are. I just did, and it looks like for the most part my guesstimates about rental rates are pretty on.
Also, check out this post from three years ago about what the cost of living is like for police in Honolulu. Keep in mind that while, yes, Danny is a detective, I don't think detectives make that much more than cops that it would totally cancel out the fact that prices have also gone up in three years.
Now, if you'd like to emphasize that Danny hasn't put down roots in your story, by all means. Talk about the boxes he's still got stacked in the closet of the apartment. Have Kono give him grief about his refusal to try loco moko. Or have Chin smile every time Danny pronounces the whole word teriyaki as opposed to sometimes shortening it to teri. Or, you know, have Steve give Danny grief about the lack of plates or pots in the kitchen because Danny doesn't cook.
Or have Kaye notice some other detail--there are plenty to choose from besides his tie and loafers--that Danny doesn't seem settled.
It's totally fine to imply or even state that Danny is hugely ambivalent about putting down roots in that "pineapple infested" state. (Although how anyone could see pineapple--when it is not on pizza--as a bad thing, I don't know.)
But there's no on screen evidence that his apartment is run down. It's got a banyan tree in front of it. So does the student union at USC. (It's kind of a well known thing that people read it as having inspired Dagobah in the Star Wars films since Lucas went there and all. Do not even get me started about how much more sense A New Hope made after the first time I visited Modesto.)
I don't know. Maybe Honolulu has a massive rat problem, and I just don't know about it, but the apartment building he lives in looks well-maintained to me. It's been painted recently. The grass outside is cut. There's that little picnic table he sat at with his partner's wife, played by the actress from Dollhouse whose name I can't remember.
His sofabed, frankly, looks like a pretty high end sofa bed.
I know plenty of people who live in studio apartments who don't battle rats or have epic mold in the bathroom.
The fact that Danny is living in a studio does not necessarily mean it's a crappy apartment. It may just mean that he's living in a very expensive place to live. Cost of living matters. A lot.
Sorry. Apparently that was brewing for a while.
So while I'm working on my WisCon report, I'll post this. It's not thinky. It's a rant, on utterly not thinky things.
I know that I have a ridiculously high standard of getting the details right in fic. I know this. But this thing about Danny's apartment being crappy seems to be becoming a fanon thing, and it's driving me to real annoyance.
Dear H50 Fan Fiction Writers:
Danny's apartment is not a rat-infested stinkhole of doom. It's small, sure. But he's a cop in Hawaii. In a big city. On a beach. On an island that is almost a 6 hour flight from Los Angeles.
Do you know what that kind of distance from the lower 48 does to prices for things?
Have you even glanced at housing prices in the Honolulu area? Do you have any idea how much higher prices for basic goods are on an island or other geographically isolated areas (like Alaska)? The cost of living there is quite high, and cops--even detectives--don't make that much money.
I know that a lot of people who write don't live in major cities, but let's talk about apartment rental prices and what they get to be like the closer you get to the beach and the bigger the city you live in.
(I may know a little something about this, living, as I do, within walking distance of the beach in a major metro area. In fact, I live in the second largest metro statistical area in the United States, one that just happens to be on the Pacific Ocean.)
Steve has a single family home, on the beach, which seems to be skewing the scale for a lot of people. It's important to understand that Steve likely only has a house because his family has lived there long enough to have bought that house ages ago and then his dad died leaving it to the kids. Trust me: given its location and its size, that's a house that he couldn't afford today.
I don't know Hawaii real estate, but I'd bet it's kind of similar to coastal California. There are plenty of people where I live in so Cal who own nice sized single family homes who couldn't possibly afford to buy those homes now. (Do not get me started on Prop 13 since it's specific to California and not relevant to Hawaii. It's also messing with my state in bad ways. So grr.) Suffice to say that if it weren't for Prop 13, it's likely that my neighbor who worked at a grocery store in a non-managerial position his whole life wouldn't be able to afford his home.
I have a master's degree and a full time job, and a part time job, and I will likely never own property in the city I live in. (I live at the beach, BTW.) There are folks here who worked jobs that earned them a lot less money than I make who have houses, but they can afford them because they inherited them from family who bought them when the real estate market was much more reasonable. Or they had family to live with while they didn't pay rent and could save up.
(To be fair, if I stopped traveling entirely, I might be able to save up enough for a downpayment on a tiny condo, but since my family lives on the other coast, that whole not traveling thing isn't likely, even if I cut down all my recreational travel, which isn't a quality of life I want to live anyway.)
This is because I want to live in a coastal metro area.
Someone who is on his own without family financial support, like Danny, won't have a lot of spare money when he lives on an island. Have you looked at gas prices in Hawaii? Milk? No? Might be worth it. Chances are that they're a lot higher than the prices where you are right now. I know they're higher than the prices where I live now. Okay, maybe not the gas by much, but still.
It also kind of makes sense that a guy who's never home isn't going to waste his cash on a one bedroom or two bedroom apartment when he doesn't really like the place he's in anyway.
Also, can we please stop with the implication that he lives in a den in iniquity in general? Danny's apartment building is not a run-down building. It looks pretty much like 80% of the apartment buildings of that era I've seen in Los Angeles.
I've never been to Hawaii, but friends who have assure me that in terms of architecture, in many places in Hawaii, you'd think you were in so Cal. (It's the different attitude that lets you know where you are. Or the rainbows. Or the green stuff growing around you. LA being a desert and all.) I get the sense that this is especially true of parts of Honolulu. (I also get the sense that it's very different on other islands.)
(That style of architecture has kind of grown on me. I'm particularly fond of the prevalence of those louvered glass windows I was baffled by when I got to so Cal. You know, these things. I see 'em on H50and feel strangely at home now.
True story: My bathroom in my first (also beachy) apartment in so Cal had them, and as a recent arrival from a cold climate, I was baffled by them. (I might have looked at them, had flashbacks to storm windows and shrinkwrapping poorly insulated ones for the window, and said to myself "Toto, I don't think we're in the northeast anymore."))
I guess this bothers me so much because the internet means it's kind of easy to research this stuff. Check out craigslist to get an idea of what rental rates in a city in Hawaii are. I just did, and it looks like for the most part my guesstimates about rental rates are pretty on.
Also, check out this post from three years ago about what the cost of living is like for police in Honolulu. Keep in mind that while, yes, Danny is a detective, I don't think detectives make that much more than cops that it would totally cancel out the fact that prices have also gone up in three years.
Now, if you'd like to emphasize that Danny hasn't put down roots in your story, by all means. Talk about the boxes he's still got stacked in the closet of the apartment. Have Kono give him grief about his refusal to try loco moko. Or have Chin smile every time Danny pronounces the whole word teriyaki as opposed to sometimes shortening it to teri. Or, you know, have Steve give Danny grief about the lack of plates or pots in the kitchen because Danny doesn't cook.
Or have Kaye notice some other detail--there are plenty to choose from besides his tie and loafers--that Danny doesn't seem settled.
It's totally fine to imply or even state that Danny is hugely ambivalent about putting down roots in that "pineapple infested" state. (Although how anyone could see pineapple--when it is not on pizza--as a bad thing, I don't know.)
But there's no on screen evidence that his apartment is run down. It's got a banyan tree in front of it. So does the student union at USC. (It's kind of a well known thing that people read it as having inspired Dagobah in the Star Wars films since Lucas went there and all. Do not even get me started about how much more sense A New Hope made after the first time I visited Modesto.)
I don't know. Maybe Honolulu has a massive rat problem, and I just don't know about it, but the apartment building he lives in looks well-maintained to me. It's been painted recently. The grass outside is cut. There's that little picnic table he sat at with his partner's wife, played by the actress from Dollhouse whose name I can't remember.
His sofabed, frankly, looks like a pretty high end sofa bed.
I know plenty of people who live in studio apartments who don't battle rats or have epic mold in the bathroom.
The fact that Danny is living in a studio does not necessarily mean it's a crappy apartment. It may just mean that he's living in a very expensive place to live. Cost of living matters. A lot.
Sorry. Apparently that was brewing for a while.