NCIS Fandom, Tiva and My Thoughts.
Season 7 of NCIS is will start next month. After the horribleness that was season 6 (excluding a certain couple of episodes) it is with a certain nervousness that I wait for the season opener. Will the issues of season 6 be resolved or will it continue to go downhill? Considering that Shane Brennan’s comments appear to show that he doesn’t realise anything is wrong, I’m not too hopeful about the former. Strangely enough it is not the demise of the show that I’m worried about, I can suffer through a lot to get my weekly MW fix. What I am worried about is how the season will affect the fandom. Excellent writers have already left, and others who I consider to be central to the fandom are threatening to leave if things don’t improve. And there has been the fact that a lot of the comments about the show lately have been quite negative. It’s depressing. I use this fandom to escape from my boring life, not to be brought down further. On the other hand the vague “everything is wonderful” comments by the school girls who have started to overrun the fandom aren’t helpful either. I know there are things wrong with the show. And while I don’t want to hear the negative all the time, I don’t want to pretend it doesn’t exist. I don’t really have a solution to this problem and I understand that people fall in and out of love with shows. It is just depressing and frustrating. And I don’t want to be left with a fandom where people don’t respect each other and can’t engage in intelligent conversations.
Part of the problem recently has been the issue of TIVA. I avoid conflict in RL as much as possible which is why I have avoided commenting on the issue until now. That and I sort of sit on the fence on the issue. Unlike other shows I don’t really have an OTP in NCIS. I ship Tony with almost anyone (except Jenny). So yes I enjoy a well written Tony/Ziva fic just like I enjoy a well written fic with other pairings involving Tony. I am also one of those people who doesn’t mind a little romance in their TV shows. But I hate the on-again, off-again that accompanies those romances and I don’t think I want NCIS ruined by that.
What I don’t like is to have to constantly read about how great/bad certain ships are. I don’t want to read how great or terrible Tiva, Tony/Gibbs, or any other ship is when I read spoilers, participate in challenges or even read episode reviews. Maybe all pro/anti shipping talk should be done on shipping communities only. Considering the number gen communities lately I’m not the only one who thinks this. I also think that mods should not actively support a particular ship in their posts unless it is a shipping community.
There is one final area that I would like to address in this marathon post. Before I do I want to say this is at no way directed at anyone on my f-list, it’s just something that I have notice in fandoms in general. Whether it is conscious or not I don’t know but those who ship slash/minority/non-canon pairings can sometimes appear to look down on those who ship het/canon pairings. Even if I don’t agree with your ship, I don’t put you down because of it or view you as less of a person. I expect the same in return. I get that you may have experienced discrimination because of it (now or in the past), but I would think that would make you realise how horrible discrimination is. Discrimination, whether against a minority group or against the majority, is always wrong. And just because I ship a mainstream het pairing doesn’t mean that I don’t have a brain and it doesn’t make me a 14yr old school girl. Until we can view all ships as being equal and respect each other’s views, whether they are mainstream or alternative, there will always be this undercurrent of tension in fandoms.
I want to finish by saying I hope I haven’t offended anyone and this is not directed at anyone in particular. It’s just my opinions on the matter, and most of it applies to communities and not personal journals.