Meta: General - Relationships and 'Shipping
A long, long time ago, someone mentioned this new TV show called The X Files. "Is that the one with the two FBI agents who investigate aliens? A guy and a gal?" And, yeah, that was the one.
Huh, I thought. I can see where this is going already. How...trite. And disappointing.
***
Long time before that. I was twelve? I think? Scarecrow and Mrs King. I was watching the ep where Mrs King is drugged in the foreign embassy and Bruce Boxleitner carries Kate Jackson out past all the dignitaries and guests in their tuxes. And at the end, standing in her garden outside the kitchen, she asks him, 'How did I get out of there? I don't remember a thing.' And he said, 'I carried you.'
I asked my mom, "Why don't they get married already? They love each other. Like, forever."
Mom said, "I know, but they're fighting it." She couldn't explain why they would do such a silly thing as that.
***
Quiz time.
Name a TV show, mainstream novel, or any movie where the hero(ine) *doesn't* end up in a sustained romantic relationship with the romantic interest co-star. Eventually or at all. And yes, Crouching Tiger counts as 'ends up with romantic interest' - twice, by my reckoning.
Now, name a TV show, mainstream novel, or any movie where the hero(ine) ends up in a sustained romantic relationship with two or more other characters. At the same time. As in, polygamy.
Name one where the hero renounces romantic involvement, and ends the film/book/show unforesworn. And still fulfilled.
I know there are one or two of the third one out there. Not many of the second. The focus on romantic relationships in our genre media (TV, movies) or in media at all is actually fairly tightly focused. As in, blind to a number of options.
***
Real Life:
I was in Italy, without TV, and a new friend was really into this TV show The X-Files. Got tapes sent to her from the States and everything. And I asked, remembering - About 2 FBI agents, right? So, when did they hook up?
She looked at me. They haven't. They're just partners.
Bullshit, I said. She said, No, really. Come over and watch an ep.
So I did. And got hooked on the show half-way through Teso Los Biches. And said, again: Bullshit. They *so* want each other.
***
Lover's Walk was on again, the other night. And amidst all the wonderful Scooby things and Oz things and the Angel-Buffy interaction was Spike, black nails and white hair and voice cracking with misery and self-centeredness.
You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love 'till it kills you both. You'll fight and you'll shag and you'll hate each other 'till it makes you quiver. But you never be friends.
***
More Real Life - on the road in the UK.
The other one and I were at breakfast, at a B&B in Wales. And the woman across the table was telling us about a trip her daughter planned - to go see a new member of the family - "the daughter's partner's sister's baby" - the sister, you understand, being married to an American in the US Air Force.
The other one and I nodded. September's kinda warm in Texas.
She and I talked about it, later, sitting on a rocky hillside. Partner, to me, meant 'business confidant.' Or something like 'teammate.' The other one said that, to her, it meant 'road companion.' Neither of which, we thought, was exactly how the lady at breakfast had meant it. And we decided, no, we could not say for certain what was the gender of the daughter's significant other.
>>Does it really matter?<< I asked, chewing on a grass stem.
No, not really. She considered a crust of sandwich. You know, we're probably confusing half these people, ourselves.
>>Didn't fly all the way across the Atlantic to pick up a string of one-nighters. And if they can't figure out what 'buddy' means, they're too dense for me anyway.<<
Still. Would be nice to get flirted with.
>>Yeah.<<
***
When the buzz started circulating about Farscape, a comment I heard more than once was "They aren't going to have any UST rumors floating - it's going to be all out in the open. They've already said 'We aren't doing an X-Files.' "
***
In the past week, someone (Maidenjedi?) linked to a thread on the XF Haven's Board. Which I knew, intellectually, was shipper-centric. The thread was 'What sorts of fic do you *not* like?'
They didn't say 'Badly formatted.' Or 'With poor character voice.' Or 'Over-done plots with no original take.'
They said, 'Slash. AU. Post-col. Anything focused on Doggett/Skinner/Monica/etc.'
They said, 'Mulder/Other. Scully/Other.'
They said, 'Anything not MSR.'
(There were a very few voices that spoke up in favor of each of these. But only a few.)
And I sat there, staring at the screen, thinking, What a very weird world. And Leaves more for the rest of us, I guess.
They really didn't like slash, most of them. Nor AU. Because 'I just can't see them doing those sorts of things. Mulder and Scully aren't gay. And because if they aren't investigating the X-Files, it really isn't Scully and Mulder.'
***
If you have an earring, some will call you gay.
But if you drive a pickup, they'll say no, he must be straight.
What we are and what we ain't-
What we can and what we can't-
Does it really matter?
If I die before I wake, feed Jake...
Pirates of the Mississippi Feed Jake
***
How much of who and what we are is bound up in our gender? In our sexual preference? In what we do every single day?
They twinned John Crichton. The twin went away and had adventures without John. Now John says he's not the same person as his twin. He says he's different. His twin's lover says otherwise.
If I was a secretary in a high rise in Orlando, would I be very not 'hossgal'? If I was a guy - beer drinking, working on a farm, living alone - would I not be me, still?
If I *did* like girls 'like that' - would that make me very different than who I am?
We tell each other that who you desire, who you decide to sleep with, really doesn't matter much. A person is still a person. Still the same person. At least, that's the consensus. Until one floats the idea, in a SF thought experiment sort of way - what if you could really change a person's orientation? From hereto to homo or homo to hereto?
Lots of people don't like that idea. Lots of people get really up tight.
***
Real Life:
Carrie sweeps the feed back into the feeding bin and pauses, leaning on her broom. I shoved more feed into the next bin and keep talking. >> It's not that she's a *bad* person. [LessLazySlow!Girl], I mean. She's just...she's nineteen. <<
Carrie nods and works the wad of dip around to the other side of her jaw. Young. Ev'body's stupid when they young.
>>She's what, nineteen. Of *course* the only thing in her life is that guy.<<
'That guy' is a foreign exchange student, also working at the dairy. LessLazySlow!girl keeps coming up with excuses to go to his work area - or is late back from breaks, having gone to see him. The desperate clinging has long since past being cute and is pissing everyone off. 'That guy' for his part, is attempted a show of professionalism.
She'll grow out of it. She's young. She dunno nuthin'.
I shake my head, and keep shoveling.
***
So Aeryn and John love each other. They said so. They've said so before. Happy-happy joy-joy, right?
And he was waiting for her and she came back to him. And she's having a baby.
And, looking back (hindsight 20-20) I can tell they've been building toward this since they showed the flashback of Xhalax coming to see 12-year old Aeryn in the crèche. And definitely since the ep where the PK killed his sister for violating 'Race Purity' customs.
But. Aeryn says, in John's head, 'I'm not right for you. I'm just the best of limited choices.'
She's right. There is *no way* this whole string of events could possibly be considered 'destiny.' They're *not* fated for each other - (KoddiacMax's Company of Ghosts not withstanding.) The strings don't tangle that much.
And besides, focusing on just Aeryn-John is only one part of the picture. Or it should be. There is the whole John-D'Argo business. And what of John-Zhann? The John-Pip connection has been built up lately (very well in John Quixote) and that's good, but still it's not the whole family. I want more linkage between John and D'Argo - conflicting with John's connection to Aeryn. I miss the Aeryn/Crais undercurrents - two lost scouts, finding a familiar uniform and a hometown cadence. And John-Zhann - I missed most of that dance. What did Zhann mean to John? Would her influence have changed the John/Aeryn interaction? Would Zhann have pushed John into more of a leader role, sooner, faster? Would Aeryn have resented the ignorant human giving her direction, back before she trusted him? Would a more proactive John have earned Aeryn's respect, as Maayan says our John has not?
***
When I stopped hanging out at the XF OS, I hung at the Message Board at the End of The Universe. The Endies are - were - ex-Philes. Noromo ex-philes. And very bitter about it.
(Also anti-Scully (well, maybe not Smart!Scully. Definately anti-Hormone!Scully) pro-DD rabidly anti-Baaaayyybeeee ex-philes. And bitter about that, too. Very bright, witty people. But with issues.)
I quit hanging out there when FarScape went into hiatus before the Final Four and people started posting spoilers in message titles. (I never cared about spoilers before FS. Funny how the shoe fits on the other foot.)
Went back, after being gone for six months or so, and found a crowd that had formerly *lurved* FS was, now, very bitter. Very anti-ship. And, once more, anti-baayyybeee.
It's all about the 'ship anymore! We're not going to watch if it's all about the 'ship!
And I'm thinking - they just had John walk right past her. And before that, throw her to the bed like she was dirty laundry. And she's not telling him what she did, out there. That's not 'ship. That's TPTB saying, 'There are things out there beyond the ship. Wait for it.'
And They're dumbing down one of the smartest female characters on TV!
And I'm thinking - are we talking about the same Aeryn Sun? Loyal, yes, tenacious, yes, stubborn, definitely, tough, oh hell yeah. But not *intelligent*.
***
I read due South fic. Some days, I read a *lot* of dS. And I told myself I was a Fraser/Kowalski gal. Except for Should I Revive Within Me.
For those of you who don't understand - due South was a cop buddy show. Set in Chicago, with a Canadian Mountie, Fraser, partnered with a Chicago detective, Vecchio. Then he was partnered with another detective, Kowalski. You need to either watch the show or read a *lot* of fic to follow this.
When they brought in the new partner, the fandom blew up in a manner foreshadowing the 'Dogman and Moronica' crisis in TXF. People did not believe that Fraser could get over his old buddy for this new guy. (Somehow, the fact that, strictly speaking canonically, he wasn't *that* kind of buddies with the old partner didn't matter.) There are people who still won't talk to each other, it seems.
Most of the fic out there is F/K. Some F/V. Even less of the 'odds and sods' - gen and het (F/Thatcher, F/Frannie, K/Stella) and the 'weird stuff' - trois and K/Turnbuckle and K/Welsh.
I read the F/K stuff. Sometimes they talk about what would have happened, if Vecchio had not left - if Kowalski and Fraser would have ever connected. There is a whole series that puts Kowalski and Fraser - changed but still the same - in different eras, different lives, and different species - and still gets them connected. It's fate, you see. They don't make it without each other.
(There is not, repeat *not* a lot of dS out there that is not slash. Just in case you didn't know already.)
Someone (very wonderful someone) began a lj 'list' called DS Reporter - gives a near-daily update on dS fandom - interviews, apprearances, fic postings. With links.
And I discover that much of the F/K out there bores me to tears. Most of the authors, god bless them, just can't hold a story together. But a few - wow. I am not just a F/K gal after all.
I can even be a Kowalski/Vecchio gal. Or even a Deif/Concrete Block gal. If the author's good.
And I begin to think - why *can't* Kowalski and Fraser make it alone?
***
Real Life again - back in Italy:
There was a group of us that hung out together - went on trips, went out to supper. Rented movies. Singles, guys and gals. Not everyone went everywhere. Not everyone was there every week. It was a very anarchist sort of gang.
One of the gals I had known from before (not the XF gal, another one) was part of this group. Sort of. Between boyfriends. She would show up one night, announcing that she had dumped the last sig-o and that she was swearing off relationships for the foreseeable future. We would nod and buy her a beer and welcome her in - she was a very charismatic person. Much liked by everyone.
Two or three weeks would go by. We'd go to local movies, down the coast to a festival, stay in town and close down the local bar. Then my friend would show up to the gang's supper with a guy. She'd bring him to the next thing, too. And spend all evening sitting in his lap. Then she wouldn't show up again for three months. Or two. Or five. And then she would be back again, having sworn off relationships for the foreseeable future. Again.
Two years of this. Me and the other gals in the group drank our beer and played darts with the guys and had our occasional 'dates' and shook our heads. We talked work and world politics and when we were going back to the States. None of which, it ever seemed, was in the least bit influenced by who we were or were not sleeping with.
***
Mercedes Lackey has written a long series of fantasy sword and sorcery novels, focused on a kingdom called Vlademar and protected by Heralds bonded to noble white steeds. Sometimes the Heralds are bonded to each other, too. Life-bonds, when two true loves meet and 'share souls'. It seems nearly every major character was life-bonded to someone else - either tragically or in romantic bliss.
In a later novel, Lackey (finally!!!) addresses the rose-colored view of life-bonds - of how rare and hard to live with the bonds are for the people involved. 'You can't even think of doing anything that would hurt the other person. It hurts you - your goals and your desires must be the same as your life-mate's.' Regular love and marriages, she says, are both easier and more enjoyable.
***
I told cofax it was weird, being in fandom (FS) with the pregnancy thing floating around. In TXF, on the Official Site, it was all 'Oh, a bayyybeee! Isn't that great! What are they going to name it?' And riffing off the (FS) Wormhole, a series of writers have done away with the nub. Even before the final four were broadcast in the States.
And cofax wrote In Fortune's Fist He was too tired to be angry, and it was so good to see a familiar face. He dropped his gloves on the table and tried to smile. His hand was steady as he put it up to her cheek, to trace the scar. "How'd you get this?"
She didn't pull away. "Nebari."
And I said - that's good. They're more than lovers - they are comrades in arms. Partners on the road. (And cofax said, huh. I didn't mean to put that in there. It's good that it's there, I guess.)
And Maayan says they've gone past each other - Aeryn moving towards 'humanity', John towards the Peacekeeper emotional armor that will let him survive. And I think she is right.
Perhaps they unbalanced each other - stripped away the things that let them survive. Aeryn is too open - too slow to fire, too quick to take on causes, too trusting of Scorpius at her back. John has become too hard - too quick to pull Wynnona, too cynical, without the open soul that has kept his heart whole even after everything that has happened to him.
They've focused too hard on each other. They've tried too hard. Each of them has attempted to orbit the other, forgetting that the other is a moving mass themselves, and the gaping holes within generate enough gravity to throw off their trajectory.
I think perhaps Aeryn and John do see that now - at least John might. But they are also two space walkers, gone EVA without jet packs or tethers. No way to move, drifting aimlessly. Falling slowly together. And when they are collapsing toward each other, the only way they can regain their balance is to push off each other - shove away, hard. Generate enough force to break out of free-fall and reach a solid surface. Move away, before they can come together. Or, really, before they can go anywhere.
I don't know if they know this. And it would be hard, in the darkness, to push away from the other one, even if all the two of you can do together is fall.
***
My grandmother's love advice boiled down to this:
"You better be friends with the man. Don't go marrying anyone you aren't friends with. Love doesn't last. Love can't handle the mornings before coffee and the nights without sleep. Love doesn't make it through two dead babies and three live ones and eighteen moves and being so poor you run out of bread two days before you get paid again. Friendship will get you through a lot that love won't even touch."
Huh, I thought. I can see where this is going already. How...trite. And disappointing.
***
Long time before that. I was twelve? I think? Scarecrow and Mrs King. I was watching the ep where Mrs King is drugged in the foreign embassy and Bruce Boxleitner carries Kate Jackson out past all the dignitaries and guests in their tuxes. And at the end, standing in her garden outside the kitchen, she asks him, 'How did I get out of there? I don't remember a thing.' And he said, 'I carried you.'
I asked my mom, "Why don't they get married already? They love each other. Like, forever."
Mom said, "I know, but they're fighting it." She couldn't explain why they would do such a silly thing as that.
***
Quiz time.
Name a TV show, mainstream novel, or any movie where the hero(ine) *doesn't* end up in a sustained romantic relationship with the romantic interest co-star. Eventually or at all. And yes, Crouching Tiger counts as 'ends up with romantic interest' - twice, by my reckoning.
Now, name a TV show, mainstream novel, or any movie where the hero(ine) ends up in a sustained romantic relationship with two or more other characters. At the same time. As in, polygamy.
Name one where the hero renounces romantic involvement, and ends the film/book/show unforesworn. And still fulfilled.
I know there are one or two of the third one out there. Not many of the second. The focus on romantic relationships in our genre media (TV, movies) or in media at all is actually fairly tightly focused. As in, blind to a number of options.
***
Real Life:
I was in Italy, without TV, and a new friend was really into this TV show The X-Files. Got tapes sent to her from the States and everything. And I asked, remembering - About 2 FBI agents, right? So, when did they hook up?
She looked at me. They haven't. They're just partners.
Bullshit, I said. She said, No, really. Come over and watch an ep.
So I did. And got hooked on the show half-way through Teso Los Biches. And said, again: Bullshit. They *so* want each other.
***
Lover's Walk was on again, the other night. And amidst all the wonderful Scooby things and Oz things and the Angel-Buffy interaction was Spike, black nails and white hair and voice cracking with misery and self-centeredness.
You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love 'till it kills you both. You'll fight and you'll shag and you'll hate each other 'till it makes you quiver. But you never be friends.
***
More Real Life - on the road in the UK.
The other one and I were at breakfast, at a B&B in Wales. And the woman across the table was telling us about a trip her daughter planned - to go see a new member of the family - "the daughter's partner's sister's baby" - the sister, you understand, being married to an American in the US Air Force.
The other one and I nodded. September's kinda warm in Texas.
She and I talked about it, later, sitting on a rocky hillside. Partner, to me, meant 'business confidant.' Or something like 'teammate.' The other one said that, to her, it meant 'road companion.' Neither of which, we thought, was exactly how the lady at breakfast had meant it. And we decided, no, we could not say for certain what was the gender of the daughter's significant other.
>>Does it really matter?<< I asked, chewing on a grass stem.
No, not really. She considered a crust of sandwich. You know, we're probably confusing half these people, ourselves.
>>Didn't fly all the way across the Atlantic to pick up a string of one-nighters. And if they can't figure out what 'buddy' means, they're too dense for me anyway.<<
Still. Would be nice to get flirted with.
>>Yeah.<<
***
When the buzz started circulating about Farscape, a comment I heard more than once was "They aren't going to have any UST rumors floating - it's going to be all out in the open. They've already said 'We aren't doing an X-Files.' "
***
In the past week, someone (Maidenjedi?) linked to a thread on the XF Haven's Board. Which I knew, intellectually, was shipper-centric. The thread was 'What sorts of fic do you *not* like?'
They didn't say 'Badly formatted.' Or 'With poor character voice.' Or 'Over-done plots with no original take.'
They said, 'Slash. AU. Post-col. Anything focused on Doggett/Skinner/Monica/etc.'
They said, 'Mulder/Other. Scully/Other.'
They said, 'Anything not MSR.'
(There were a very few voices that spoke up in favor of each of these. But only a few.)
And I sat there, staring at the screen, thinking, What a very weird world. And Leaves more for the rest of us, I guess.
They really didn't like slash, most of them. Nor AU. Because 'I just can't see them doing those sorts of things. Mulder and Scully aren't gay. And because if they aren't investigating the X-Files, it really isn't Scully and Mulder.'
***
If you have an earring, some will call you gay.
But if you drive a pickup, they'll say no, he must be straight.
What we are and what we ain't-
What we can and what we can't-
Does it really matter?
If I die before I wake, feed Jake...
Pirates of the Mississippi Feed Jake
***
How much of who and what we are is bound up in our gender? In our sexual preference? In what we do every single day?
They twinned John Crichton. The twin went away and had adventures without John. Now John says he's not the same person as his twin. He says he's different. His twin's lover says otherwise.
If I was a secretary in a high rise in Orlando, would I be very not 'hossgal'? If I was a guy - beer drinking, working on a farm, living alone - would I not be me, still?
If I *did* like girls 'like that' - would that make me very different than who I am?
We tell each other that who you desire, who you decide to sleep with, really doesn't matter much. A person is still a person. Still the same person. At least, that's the consensus. Until one floats the idea, in a SF thought experiment sort of way - what if you could really change a person's orientation? From hereto to homo or homo to hereto?
Lots of people don't like that idea. Lots of people get really up tight.
***
Real Life:
Carrie sweeps the feed back into the feeding bin and pauses, leaning on her broom. I shoved more feed into the next bin and keep talking. >> It's not that she's a *bad* person. [LessLazySlow!Girl], I mean. She's just...she's nineteen. <<
Carrie nods and works the wad of dip around to the other side of her jaw. Young. Ev'body's stupid when they young.
>>She's what, nineteen. Of *course* the only thing in her life is that guy.<<
'That guy' is a foreign exchange student, also working at the dairy. LessLazySlow!girl keeps coming up with excuses to go to his work area - or is late back from breaks, having gone to see him. The desperate clinging has long since past being cute and is pissing everyone off. 'That guy' for his part, is attempted a show of professionalism.
She'll grow out of it. She's young. She dunno nuthin'.
I shake my head, and keep shoveling.
***
So Aeryn and John love each other. They said so. They've said so before. Happy-happy joy-joy, right?
And he was waiting for her and she came back to him. And she's having a baby.
And, looking back (hindsight 20-20) I can tell they've been building toward this since they showed the flashback of Xhalax coming to see 12-year old Aeryn in the crèche. And definitely since the ep where the PK killed his sister for violating 'Race Purity' customs.
But. Aeryn says, in John's head, 'I'm not right for you. I'm just the best of limited choices.'
She's right. There is *no way* this whole string of events could possibly be considered 'destiny.' They're *not* fated for each other - (KoddiacMax's Company of Ghosts not withstanding.) The strings don't tangle that much.
And besides, focusing on just Aeryn-John is only one part of the picture. Or it should be. There is the whole John-D'Argo business. And what of John-Zhann? The John-Pip connection has been built up lately (very well in John Quixote) and that's good, but still it's not the whole family. I want more linkage between John and D'Argo - conflicting with John's connection to Aeryn. I miss the Aeryn/Crais undercurrents - two lost scouts, finding a familiar uniform and a hometown cadence. And John-Zhann - I missed most of that dance. What did Zhann mean to John? Would her influence have changed the John/Aeryn interaction? Would Zhann have pushed John into more of a leader role, sooner, faster? Would Aeryn have resented the ignorant human giving her direction, back before she trusted him? Would a more proactive John have earned Aeryn's respect, as Maayan says our John has not?
***
When I stopped hanging out at the XF OS, I hung at the Message Board at the End of The Universe. The Endies are - were - ex-Philes. Noromo ex-philes. And very bitter about it.
(Also anti-Scully (well, maybe not Smart!Scully. Definately anti-Hormone!Scully) pro-DD rabidly anti-Baaaayyybeeee ex-philes. And bitter about that, too. Very bright, witty people. But with issues.)
I quit hanging out there when FarScape went into hiatus before the Final Four and people started posting spoilers in message titles. (I never cared about spoilers before FS. Funny how the shoe fits on the other foot.)
Went back, after being gone for six months or so, and found a crowd that had formerly *lurved* FS was, now, very bitter. Very anti-ship. And, once more, anti-baayyybeee.
It's all about the 'ship anymore! We're not going to watch if it's all about the 'ship!
And I'm thinking - they just had John walk right past her. And before that, throw her to the bed like she was dirty laundry. And she's not telling him what she did, out there. That's not 'ship. That's TPTB saying, 'There are things out there beyond the ship. Wait for it.'
And They're dumbing down one of the smartest female characters on TV!
And I'm thinking - are we talking about the same Aeryn Sun? Loyal, yes, tenacious, yes, stubborn, definitely, tough, oh hell yeah. But not *intelligent*.
***
I read due South fic. Some days, I read a *lot* of dS. And I told myself I was a Fraser/Kowalski gal. Except for Should I Revive Within Me.
For those of you who don't understand - due South was a cop buddy show. Set in Chicago, with a Canadian Mountie, Fraser, partnered with a Chicago detective, Vecchio. Then he was partnered with another detective, Kowalski. You need to either watch the show or read a *lot* of fic to follow this.
When they brought in the new partner, the fandom blew up in a manner foreshadowing the 'Dogman and Moronica' crisis in TXF. People did not believe that Fraser could get over his old buddy for this new guy. (Somehow, the fact that, strictly speaking canonically, he wasn't *that* kind of buddies with the old partner didn't matter.) There are people who still won't talk to each other, it seems.
Most of the fic out there is F/K. Some F/V. Even less of the 'odds and sods' - gen and het (F/Thatcher, F/Frannie, K/Stella) and the 'weird stuff' - trois and K/Turnbuckle and K/Welsh.
I read the F/K stuff. Sometimes they talk about what would have happened, if Vecchio had not left - if Kowalski and Fraser would have ever connected. There is a whole series that puts Kowalski and Fraser - changed but still the same - in different eras, different lives, and different species - and still gets them connected. It's fate, you see. They don't make it without each other.
(There is not, repeat *not* a lot of dS out there that is not slash. Just in case you didn't know already.)
Someone (very wonderful someone) began a lj 'list' called DS Reporter - gives a near-daily update on dS fandom - interviews, apprearances, fic postings. With links.
And I discover that much of the F/K out there bores me to tears. Most of the authors, god bless them, just can't hold a story together. But a few - wow. I am not just a F/K gal after all.
I can even be a Kowalski/Vecchio gal. Or even a Deif/Concrete Block gal. If the author's good.
And I begin to think - why *can't* Kowalski and Fraser make it alone?
***
Real Life again - back in Italy:
There was a group of us that hung out together - went on trips, went out to supper. Rented movies. Singles, guys and gals. Not everyone went everywhere. Not everyone was there every week. It was a very anarchist sort of gang.
One of the gals I had known from before (not the XF gal, another one) was part of this group. Sort of. Between boyfriends. She would show up one night, announcing that she had dumped the last sig-o and that she was swearing off relationships for the foreseeable future. We would nod and buy her a beer and welcome her in - she was a very charismatic person. Much liked by everyone.
Two or three weeks would go by. We'd go to local movies, down the coast to a festival, stay in town and close down the local bar. Then my friend would show up to the gang's supper with a guy. She'd bring him to the next thing, too. And spend all evening sitting in his lap. Then she wouldn't show up again for three months. Or two. Or five. And then she would be back again, having sworn off relationships for the foreseeable future. Again.
Two years of this. Me and the other gals in the group drank our beer and played darts with the guys and had our occasional 'dates' and shook our heads. We talked work and world politics and when we were going back to the States. None of which, it ever seemed, was in the least bit influenced by who we were or were not sleeping with.
***
Mercedes Lackey has written a long series of fantasy sword and sorcery novels, focused on a kingdom called Vlademar and protected by Heralds bonded to noble white steeds. Sometimes the Heralds are bonded to each other, too. Life-bonds, when two true loves meet and 'share souls'. It seems nearly every major character was life-bonded to someone else - either tragically or in romantic bliss.
In a later novel, Lackey (finally!!!) addresses the rose-colored view of life-bonds - of how rare and hard to live with the bonds are for the people involved. 'You can't even think of doing anything that would hurt the other person. It hurts you - your goals and your desires must be the same as your life-mate's.' Regular love and marriages, she says, are both easier and more enjoyable.
***
I told cofax it was weird, being in fandom (FS) with the pregnancy thing floating around. In TXF, on the Official Site, it was all 'Oh, a bayyybeee! Isn't that great! What are they going to name it?' And riffing off the (FS) Wormhole, a series of writers have done away with the nub. Even before the final four were broadcast in the States.
And cofax wrote In Fortune's Fist He was too tired to be angry, and it was so good to see a familiar face. He dropped his gloves on the table and tried to smile. His hand was steady as he put it up to her cheek, to trace the scar. "How'd you get this?"
She didn't pull away. "Nebari."
And I said - that's good. They're more than lovers - they are comrades in arms. Partners on the road. (And cofax said, huh. I didn't mean to put that in there. It's good that it's there, I guess.)
And Maayan says they've gone past each other - Aeryn moving towards 'humanity', John towards the Peacekeeper emotional armor that will let him survive. And I think she is right.
Perhaps they unbalanced each other - stripped away the things that let them survive. Aeryn is too open - too slow to fire, too quick to take on causes, too trusting of Scorpius at her back. John has become too hard - too quick to pull Wynnona, too cynical, without the open soul that has kept his heart whole even after everything that has happened to him.
They've focused too hard on each other. They've tried too hard. Each of them has attempted to orbit the other, forgetting that the other is a moving mass themselves, and the gaping holes within generate enough gravity to throw off their trajectory.
I think perhaps Aeryn and John do see that now - at least John might. But they are also two space walkers, gone EVA without jet packs or tethers. No way to move, drifting aimlessly. Falling slowly together. And when they are collapsing toward each other, the only way they can regain their balance is to push off each other - shove away, hard. Generate enough force to break out of free-fall and reach a solid surface. Move away, before they can come together. Or, really, before they can go anywhere.
I don't know if they know this. And it would be hard, in the darkness, to push away from the other one, even if all the two of you can do together is fall.
***
My grandmother's love advice boiled down to this:
"You better be friends with the man. Don't go marrying anyone you aren't friends with. Love doesn't last. Love can't handle the mornings before coffee and the nights without sleep. Love doesn't make it through two dead babies and three live ones and eighteen moves and being so poor you run out of bread two days before you get paid again. Friendship will get you through a lot that love won't even touch."