30 days of your favorite tv show meme, days 9-13
Yeah, I missed a few days there.
9) Something from your head-canon (alternate question)
Harold was in love with Nathan Ingram. He was complicatedly in denial about it, half realizing and half managing never to realize completely; it was unrequited-ish (Nathan was pretty much straight and loved Harold deeply, but not quite romantically); it was probably never physically expressed (though if it was, I'd lay money on the period between Nathan's separation and Harold meeting Grace, and I'd also bet that the emotional pain it ultimately gave Harold was the reason he pursued Grace).
10) Favorite ship
This is a hard one for me. I really like Reese/Finch in all its flirty, dog-sharing, "I will sacrifice my life to save you whether you want me to or not" glory. And yet I also think Harold was in love with Nathan for thirty-five years and will never really be over it. I don't think that makes the Finch/Reese relationship any less real or important, but . . . put it this way, if somehow it turned out that Nathan was actually alive and Harold could be with him again (not even necessarily as lovers, but just in the relationship they had before), but at the price of sending John Reese off to a well-funded retirement in the Bahamas and never seeing him again? I think Harold would choose Nathan.
11) An unpopular/cracky opinion you hold
I don't think I know the fandom well enough to know what opinions are unpopular. My lack of absolute Finch/Reese shippiness is probably fairly unpopular; my dislike of Grace Hendricks probably less so, though the fic I've read has mostly accepted Harold's love for her as genuine, which is more than I can do. (I think he believes he loves her; I also think his feelings for her spring from a desire to be "normal" and have a normal simple heterosexual relationship, and to be loved in a way that Nathan was never able to love him.)
Oh, here's one: I don't think the Finch/Reese dynamic is a dominant/submissive one, at least not in any uncomplicated way. There are certainly a lot of threads of power and service running through the thing, but who's serving and who's being served is by no means always simple. (For example, when John goes all guard-dog about Harold, is that a submissive gesture of service or a dominant gesture of protection?) One of the things I like about the relationship is its ambiguity in that regard, and while I can understand why some folks might read/write it in terms of conventional BDSM dynamics (YKIOK), it's not what I see happening at all.
12) How would you convert someone to your show?
Well, it depends on that someone's taste, of course. But I'd probably talk up the characterization and the slashiness, and mention how interesting the canon gradually becomes even though the early episodes don't show much hint of it. Unfortunately this isn't a show where you can just pick out a really great episode or two; most of the best episodes are heavily involved in arcs. Though the episode where we first meet Carl Elias might work.
13) What show-related fanworks would you like to see?
Of course I'd love some good fic dealing with the consequences of the S3 ending, especially if it dealt with the political and ethical issues as well as how it all affects our heroes. In particular, and maybe this will sound odd, I'd like to see fic that dares to go as bleak as the canon is allowing right now. What if there's no way for them to win? What if they die trying? (I should mention that I think the show itself should end, when it ends, with Harold and John both dying. At this point I have a hard time seeing any other ending as anything but a cop-out. I don't usually want stories to be tragic, but in a way that's among the less tragic possible endings for the two of them--I think they'd much prefer to die together, or at least at the same time, than for just one to die and the other to have to go on alone.)
And in general I'd like to see fanfic that pushes the boundaries a bit. POI fic, as I've whined before, tends to be pretty conventional by fannish standards* and this puzzles me.
*I include in the category of "conventional by fannish standards" things like werewolf or vampire AUs, omegaverse, and all the other standard tropes and premises, however odd they might seem to people outside of fandom.
Crossposted at Dreamwidth (
comments); you can comment here or there.
9) Something from your head-canon (alternate question)
Harold was in love with Nathan Ingram. He was complicatedly in denial about it, half realizing and half managing never to realize completely; it was unrequited-ish (Nathan was pretty much straight and loved Harold deeply, but not quite romantically); it was probably never physically expressed (though if it was, I'd lay money on the period between Nathan's separation and Harold meeting Grace, and I'd also bet that the emotional pain it ultimately gave Harold was the reason he pursued Grace).
10) Favorite ship
This is a hard one for me. I really like Reese/Finch in all its flirty, dog-sharing, "I will sacrifice my life to save you whether you want me to or not" glory. And yet I also think Harold was in love with Nathan for thirty-five years and will never really be over it. I don't think that makes the Finch/Reese relationship any less real or important, but . . . put it this way, if somehow it turned out that Nathan was actually alive and Harold could be with him again (not even necessarily as lovers, but just in the relationship they had before), but at the price of sending John Reese off to a well-funded retirement in the Bahamas and never seeing him again? I think Harold would choose Nathan.
11) An unpopular/cracky opinion you hold
I don't think I know the fandom well enough to know what opinions are unpopular. My lack of absolute Finch/Reese shippiness is probably fairly unpopular; my dislike of Grace Hendricks probably less so, though the fic I've read has mostly accepted Harold's love for her as genuine, which is more than I can do. (I think he believes he loves her; I also think his feelings for her spring from a desire to be "normal" and have a normal simple heterosexual relationship, and to be loved in a way that Nathan was never able to love him.)
Oh, here's one: I don't think the Finch/Reese dynamic is a dominant/submissive one, at least not in any uncomplicated way. There are certainly a lot of threads of power and service running through the thing, but who's serving and who's being served is by no means always simple. (For example, when John goes all guard-dog about Harold, is that a submissive gesture of service or a dominant gesture of protection?) One of the things I like about the relationship is its ambiguity in that regard, and while I can understand why some folks might read/write it in terms of conventional BDSM dynamics (YKIOK), it's not what I see happening at all.
12) How would you convert someone to your show?
Well, it depends on that someone's taste, of course. But I'd probably talk up the characterization and the slashiness, and mention how interesting the canon gradually becomes even though the early episodes don't show much hint of it. Unfortunately this isn't a show where you can just pick out a really great episode or two; most of the best episodes are heavily involved in arcs. Though the episode where we first meet Carl Elias might work.
13) What show-related fanworks would you like to see?
Of course I'd love some good fic dealing with the consequences of the S3 ending, especially if it dealt with the political and ethical issues as well as how it all affects our heroes. In particular, and maybe this will sound odd, I'd like to see fic that dares to go as bleak as the canon is allowing right now. What if there's no way for them to win? What if they die trying? (I should mention that I think the show itself should end, when it ends, with Harold and John both dying. At this point I have a hard time seeing any other ending as anything but a cop-out. I don't usually want stories to be tragic, but in a way that's among the less tragic possible endings for the two of them--I think they'd much prefer to die together, or at least at the same time, than for just one to die and the other to have to go on alone.)
And in general I'd like to see fanfic that pushes the boundaries a bit. POI fic, as I've whined before, tends to be pretty conventional by fannish standards* and this puzzles me.
*I include in the category of "conventional by fannish standards" things like werewolf or vampire AUs, omegaverse, and all the other standard tropes and premises, however odd they might seem to people outside of fandom.
Crossposted at Dreamwidth (
comments); you can comment here or there.