damn it

[kindkit]

Argh, I've just been forcibly reminded of why I have some issues with scripted shows. I just watched Sanctuary 3x09, "Vigilante," and for some reason, the writers decided to ignore the extremely well-established fact of Henry and the Big Guy's close friendship. There is no way, absolutely no way, that with the Big Guy lying in the infirmary unconscious, having been shot repeatedly by the man who killed one of his dearest friends, Henry would fuck off to his room to talk to his girlfriend on Skype.

I liked the growing friendship between Kate and the Big Guy, I really did. But not if the showrunners are going to bring her in as Henry's replacement in the best friend department. Not only is it crap characterization and poor, inconsistent storytelling, I'm also suspicious of why the choice was made. Did somebody finally notice how incredibly homoerotic the interactions between Henry and the Big Guy were? God knows, we can't have that!

*fumes*

ETA: I really am disproportionately upset by this. Seriously, I'm sitting here in tears. I trusted someone else's storytelling and was betrayed by it again, and it's fucked up a fanfic idea I really liked, and god damn it, why can't we have nice things sometimes?

Comments

[st_aurafina]

*hugs you*

I'm really sorry the show has upset you - I'm in a headspace where I can happily rewrite the show to suit my tastes, but that's not always how it works. And I'm sorry that the best the show can do for you is give you glimpses of what you want - it's sadly lacking in stable, happy relationships of any kind. The balance I've struck, personally, is to prioritise head canon above fanon above canon. It's not something we should have to do, but it means I can enjoy the world and the characters, rating the writing and the actual show well below fandom's expectations.

Would you like some fic recs now that you're caught up? I can't give you recs for Henry/Big Guy but there's one gen fic you might like by penknife. And one by dbalthasar, a kind of public school boy's own adventure with John and James.

Clean-Up, gen, Henry and the Big Guy, an episode tag for The Five.

Watson's First Case: slashy gen, school story, Druitt and Watson, public school boys.

[kindkit]

I'm in a headspace where I can happily rewrite the show to suit my tastes

That's by far the best fannish headspace. My problem is that when a show seems to be offering the possibility of not have to rewrite--whether it's an actual queer character, or a readable-as-queer character, in either case shown in non-homophobic ways--I'm so delighted that I guess I let my mental defenses down too far. I mean, I still think that "Kate at the Big Guy's bedside while he cries, Henry on the phone with his girlfriend" is a bad storytelling choice that's OOC for Henry. But the degree to which it upset me is about stuff that was going on in my head.

I've now adapted the story idea I was already kicking around to include that moment and offer reasons why it happened, so I think my grief has progressed to the denial stage, anyway! *laughs*

I can't give you recs for Henry/Big Guy

I'm still baffled at how few people write or read this pairing. It's not just an obvious choice, IMO, based on canon, it's also incredibly interesting.

[kindkit]

Oh, and thanks for the recs!

[lemposoi]

Still not having seen the show, if I was you I'd rewrite the episode as fic and see where it goes from there.

[kindkit]

I am, as it happens--I was able to incorporate the moment into a pre-existing fic idea.

However, nothing I do in a fic will actually fix the problem with the source text. As much as I love and value fanfic's transformative abilities, I don't think that fanfic lets the source text off the hook. For example, all the slashfic in the world won't change the fact that a text has no LGBT characters.

So I guess I take a dual position: yes, I can make sense of this development with fic, and so I can turn the canonical problem into an opportunity; on the other hand, there is still a problem in the source text that I think it's important to recognize as a problem.

[lemposoi]

True, very true. I guess the question is also how much it's going to spoil the rest of it for you. I have a triple method of ignoring what I don't like (rape jokes in Red Dwarf), fix-it ficcing (Boston Legal) or acknowledging and condemning the problem while still allowing myself to like those things I do like about the fandom (Boston Legal again).