Break the tie!

Anyone who hasn't yet voted or has amazing powers of voter recruitment, if you could cast some ballots over at the Fannish Bulwer-Lytton Contest, that would be great—I would like to announce the winners tomorrow, and we have a sort of awkward tie situation at the moment. Thanks!

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1. Character bashing is never a good idea. It’s just…tacky. And I’m not saying, “Don’t say anything negative!” I don’t think it’s unreasonable to point out the difference between saying, “What Character X did there bugged me, it was stupid” and “Character X is a stupid bitch.”

2. Character bashing for the “preservation” of a ship is an even worse idea. Besides being petty and ugly, it’s just plain unnecessary. The existence of Character X or Character X’s relationship with Character Y doesn’t actually stop anyone from writing fic about Character Y and Character Z screwing each other seven ways from Sunday. And even if Character X and Character Y get married in canon and have 27 babies, that shouldn’t stop anyone from writing AU fic where Character Y and Character Z screw seven ways from Sunday, or non-AU fic where Y gets a babysitter so Y and Z can screw some more.

3. Bashing female characters who “interfere” with slash ships is especially bothersome. First, there’s the misogyny inherent in the idea that this evil woman who’s getting between our boys must be stopped. Second, as I already said, the idea that the existence of this female character can actually interfere with what we write/draw/vid is ludicrous. Canon and fandom: these are separate spheres, guys. What we do and what TPTB do have no effect on each other whatsoever. (Okay, little effect—if TPTB suddenly turned all the characters into elves, there would be more fic where they were elves. There would also be plenty of elf-denial fic. Fandom rolls on.)

4. Personally, since I know that my slash ship is never going to happen onscreen—that none of them are (well, maybe House/Wilson. MAYBE)—I am fine with there being onscreen romances for characters, as well as offscreen ones in my head. It’s the same separate spheres idea: I like to enjoy both. Now, obviously, no one is obligated to love every single thing that happens in a show’s canon. If Zelenka died, for example—omg, would I be upset. Or, to move a little closer to what everyone knows this post is about (I am tired of being coy)—if TPTB decided that John and Rodney were no longer friends—if all of a sudden, everything onscreen suggested that they hated each other—god yes, I would be pissed. But that’s not what’s happening here. If anything, their friendship is being shown as stronger than ever. If anything, there is more glorious team love going around than there has ever been before. Which just makes everyone hating on Keller like this so much more disingenuous. We were just given an episode that was SLASH GOLD. Why can’t we focus on that, instead of being needlessly nasty about a smart, awkward, geeky, interesting female character who has the GALL to like Rodney McKay? You know, like we do.

5. I like Keller. I relate to Keller. Do you have to? No. But this outpouring of hate toward her seems to me like confirmation of what people—people with whom I usually disagree—say when they call slash fans misogynistic. When I read post after post of Keller-loathing (and I finally just stopped reading episode reactions, because in so many cases I wasn’t finding squee, but bile), it feels to me that we are hating on ourselves. That we are hating on women. I am sure you could bring me individual case after individual case that proves me wrong, but I would just like to ask all of you to think a bit before you write more about how Keller isn’t good enough for Rodney or he’d have to be mentally unhinged to like her or how she’s too whiny or awkward (and Rodney’s not?) or pushy or controlling (and John’s not?). Is it really necessary to bring her down in order to make John and Rodney love each other? No, it’s not.

6. Jennifer Keller does nothing to hurt or harm McKay/Sheppard. But I think these reactions toward her—this attitude—really does. It makes me less likely to want to participate in John/Rodney discussions or read John/Rodney fic. It takes something that’s supposed to be about love—because isn’t that what shipping is? Rooting for love? (Okay, and sex)—and makes it about knocking relationships—and people—down instead of building them up. I don’t want to be a part of that. And I would like to think we’re better than that.