Sorry if I sounded a bit snappy in the last reply, it was something I thought I'd explained, so was getting impatient. But I didn't manage to word it clearly before, glad I was able to! (FWIW, I think that most of the slashers who responded negatively to Gero were coming from that viewpoint, if that helps you make sense of their reactions.)
And yeah, a wide variety of human relationships are possible; I'm just focusing on the ones I particularly like to watch/read about (which differs from fiction to fiction, but these are kinks specific to my Type B status quo fanfic fandoms...)
I'm willing to take friendships on faith, but not, generally, romance. You can take romance (friendship-based romance, I hasten to caveat *g*) on faith, in a way that I can't, but not friendships, in the way that I do.
I think this is it, yeah - because usually I do like friendship more than romance, and I like platonic friendships that last - I just have to be convinced they're possible, generally; as you say, I can't take it on faith that they will.
...Well. Hmmm. Actually, for me, I have to be convinced of writer intent. That's the difference between you and me, perhaps - when I read gen fic written by gen fen such as yourself, I find it utterly satisfying, because I know you are seeing the friendship as something meaningful. I don't need for you to slash John & Rodney for me to believe that you see their friendship as important and lasting. That I know you find friendship more important than romance means that I'm happy to take the friendships as is; and even if you write the characters as romantically involved with other people, you still consider their friendship just as/more important to the characters. (Um. This question of writer intent would be why I had that ridiculous meltdown over your Rodney/Keller/Ronon story ^^;)
But most writers put romance first - Gero being the current example, but most other people I know, too. So when they write romance, I'm suspicious that they're writing a romantic relationship to trump the friendships (especially if they then go and say that's exactly what they're doing!) While as if they're writing the friendship as the romance, then there's no question. Most TV writers, who are given to adding romantic subplots into everything, I tend to take as "guilty until proven innocent" - every time they write romance, I suspect that they're trying to supersede the friendships. (This is probably doing some of them a disservice, as Wright's writing definitely indicates he thinks friendship is more meaningful. And this is why I loved NCIS's resolution of Tony/Jeanne so much, because it made it clear those writers think like I do.)
For me, it's the relationship between certain chars that matters (my OTPs) and the significance of the relationship matters more to me than the nature of it - I care less whether their love is platonic or sexual than whether it's important to the chars; and the relationships I fixate on are nearly always friendship-based, whether or not they also include romance. But I get that for you, a platonic relationship is what you care about; a sexual relationship spoils it.
(Perhaps oddly, I have OTPs that are strictly platonic, that I don't want to see as sexual, for whatever reasons. So I understand that feeling, as far as it goes. The difference is that I simply avoid reading slash/ship and stick to gen for those pairings, and if I do read slash, I appreciate that the writer is seeing a significant relationship, just as I do; I don't feel like the slash is undermining my friendship reading, just giving it a different spin. Fics that 'ship against my OTPs bug me, even though I totally understand the other fan means me and my pairing no harm; but I've never had that feeling that slash is breaking my friendship OTP, even if I don't read the pairing that way myself.)
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winterfish
Re: Part 2 (edited)
Date: 2008-11-28 08:13 am (UTC)And yeah, a wide variety of human relationships are possible; I'm just focusing on the ones I particularly like to watch/read about (which differs from fiction to fiction, but these are kinks specific to my Type B status quo fanfic fandoms...)
I'm willing to take friendships on faith, but not, generally, romance. You can take romance (friendship-based romance, I hasten to caveat *g*) on faith, in a way that I can't, but not friendships, in the way that I do.
I think this is it, yeah - because usually I do like friendship more than romance, and I like platonic friendships that last - I just have to be convinced they're possible, generally; as you say, I can't take it on faith that they will.
...Well. Hmmm. Actually, for me, I have to be convinced of writer intent. That's the difference between you and me, perhaps - when I read gen fic written by gen fen such as yourself, I find it utterly satisfying, because I know you are seeing the friendship as something meaningful. I don't need for you to slash John & Rodney for me to believe that you see their friendship as important and lasting. That I know you find friendship more important than romance means that I'm happy to take the friendships as is; and even if you write the characters as romantically involved with other people, you still consider their friendship just as/more important to the characters. (Um. This question of writer intent would be why I had that ridiculous meltdown over your Rodney/Keller/Ronon story ^^;)
But most writers put romance first - Gero being the current example, but most other people I know, too. So when they write romance, I'm suspicious that they're writing a romantic relationship to trump the friendships (especially if they then go and say that's exactly what they're doing!) While as if they're writing the friendship as the romance, then there's no question. Most TV writers, who are given to adding romantic subplots into everything, I tend to take as "guilty until proven innocent" - every time they write romance, I suspect that they're trying to supersede the friendships. (This is probably doing some of them a disservice, as Wright's writing definitely indicates he thinks friendship is more meaningful. And this is why I loved NCIS's resolution of Tony/Jeanne so much, because it made it clear those writers think like I do.)
For me, it's the relationship between certain chars that matters (my OTPs) and the significance of the relationship matters more to me than the nature of it - I care less whether their love is platonic or sexual than whether it's important to the chars; and the relationships I fixate on are nearly always friendship-based, whether or not they also include romance. But I get that for you, a platonic relationship is what you care about; a sexual relationship spoils it.
(Perhaps oddly, I have OTPs that are strictly platonic, that I don't want to see as sexual, for whatever reasons. So I understand that feeling, as far as it goes. The difference is that I simply avoid reading slash/ship and stick to gen for those pairings, and if I do read slash, I appreciate that the writer is seeing a significant relationship, just as I do; I don't feel like the slash is undermining my friendship reading, just giving it a different spin. Fics that 'ship against my OTPs bug me, even though I totally understand the other fan means me and my pairing no harm; but I've never had that feeling that slash is breaking my friendship OTP, even if I don't read the pairing that way myself.)