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... and suddenly there was, upon your flist, a meme
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veleda_k and a few other places ...
1. Comment with any ship from a fandom that you know I have some knowledge about.
2. I will rant about aforementioned ship. This may be incoherent gushing or exclamations of disgust, depending on what it is.
Or, well, my general thoughts on the ship, as the case may be. :D (Warning: I WILL be honest! Don't ask about your favorite ship if you don't want to know!) You can also ask me about a platonic pair, i.e. a friendship, if you'd rather do it that way. Any show/book/movie/etc that I've seen is fair game.
veleda_k and a few other places ...1. Comment with any ship from a fandom that you know I have some knowledge about.
2. I will rant about aforementioned ship. This may be incoherent gushing or exclamations of disgust, depending on what it is.
Or, well, my general thoughts on the ship, as the case may be. :D (Warning: I WILL be honest! Don't ask about your favorite ship if you don't want to know!) You can also ask me about a platonic pair, i.e. a friendship, if you'd rather do it that way. Any show/book/movie/etc that I've seen is fair game.
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... having said that, I do wish that the show gave Elizabeth more to do as a character. I appreciate tremendously that they invent reasons for her to be in every episode, and to interact with characters other than Peter, when it would be awfully easy for them to just shove her off to the side. But it's relatively rare when she gets to do something more interesting than make supportive noises at Peter and smile at his and Neal's antics. Tiffani does the best she can with what she's got, but she often doesn't have a whole lot to work with. And we almost never see El having her own life, as opposed to showing up when she intersects Peter and Neal's.
Having said that, however, one thing I particularly like about the Burkes (besides their lack of domestic strife and general adorableness) is that we see them sharing the household chores and basically acting as equal partners in the marriage. I know that it's a little thing, but they're such a heteronormative couple in so many ways that I really appreciate the fact that the show doesn't default to, say, Elizabeth doing all the cooking and cleaning, or to Peter making all the decisions without El getting a voice. And it seems stupid that it needs to be commented upon, but the sad thing is that it's awfully easy for even well-meaning writers to fall back on those standard, sexist tropes, especially when it's all taking place in the background. So I really appreciate that we see "manly man" Peter cooking and cleaning off the table and ironing his own shirts.
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Oh, yes. One of the things I miss about season one is that it more than any other season showed us Elizabeth at her job, doing her thing. Even season two was kind of nice, because, yeah, we didn't see much of her, but the reason they gave for her being gone so much was that her business was doing so well. It was about her and her success, and I think it was a pretty decent character bit, considering it was thought up to deal with Tiffani's pregnancy. But from season three on, there's been much less of that.
To be fair, WC has a large cast, and I know that Eastin has his hands full trying to give each character their due. It may not be a coincidence that season three, which had less independent Elizabeth, was also the season that began to pay significant attention to other secondary characters (Diana, Jones, Mozzie).
But I really wish they could give us a few scenes of Elizabeth at work. Or hanging out with friends. Something to show that she has a life outside of Peter.
So I really appreciate that we see "manly man" Peter cooking and cleaning off the table and ironing his own shirts.
Yes, again. Pretty much everyone knows how much I love how WC does gender, but the way that Peter's masculinity is in no way compromised by helping out around the house and respecting his wife (and the other women in his life).
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ME TOO! And I'm so delighted it's not just me. (I think maybe we've talked about this a little? Or was it you that I was discussing it with?) For a show that's about two white straight guys, I think WC is actually head and shoulders above most other genre shows on gender and, to a somewhat lesser extent, sexuality. Not that it couldn't afford to do better in some areas, but I am really impressed with how it handles its women characters, considering how little screen time they have. (It really made me stop and go "whoa" when I realized that in four seasons, WC has never a) threatened a female character with rape, or b) depicted a female murder/assault victim in a sexualized or exploitive way. And all their damsels in distress, even the guest stars, get to take an active role in rescuing themselves. I wish more shows would catch a clue.)
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WC really impresses me in terms of gender. While there is room for improvement, it's the most feminist friendly show I've come across in a long time.
I love the places it's willing to go with its women characters. I love that the Diana is the team's resident ass kicker. I love that Diana's sexuality is a clear part of her without being all of her.
I love that Alex is selfish. Men on TV are frequently allowed to be selfish, but women are supposed to be nurturing and giving. Alex weighed a romance with the male lead against a truckload of treasure and came out in favor of the treasure! There are plenty of likable rogue character whose allegiances are ever changing, but they're generally men.
And Sara is ambitious and aggressive in ways that men are allowed to be (even admired for), but that make women humorless bitches. But the show never judges her for being the way she is. (This is part of what makes me so sad about the fandom response to Sara. Because she is such, in my opinion, a feminist character, and yet so many people react with the same tired sexism that's part of the reason characters like her aren't common in the first place.)
But it's not simply the women characters that make me so impressed with WC. Because White Collar is the only fandom I can think that makes me excited about the way it portrays masculinity. WC takes "girly" things like art, cooking, and fashion and declares that these things are cool. Neal's love of these things is what makes him suave and exciting. I can't think of a show that values non-traditional masculinity like WC does, while still respecting Peter's more mainstream display. (Though Peter's masculinity is still very subversive, in that it allows for non-traditional masculinity and femininity to be valued and respected.)
Honestly, I could write a whole essay on the way White Collar portrays masculinity, aggression, and violence.
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Lin/Iroh the younger.
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See, I have to say this is one of those ships where I just don't feel the chemistry. Maybe it's just that I don't go for enemy ships in particular -- but I mean, they were only in what, two scenes together? I guess I look for ships with more of a solid grounding in canon.
Besides, Mako's scarf clearly has eyes only for Iroh II's coat. :D
Lin/Iroh the younger.
... wow, all joking aside, this is a ship that actually never occurred to me, and I'm not sure if I have any opinions on it at all. For me, it's one of those out-of-left-field pairings where I can't really see the appeal. I'm not saying it would be bad or that I mind it -- actually, I think it's a cool idea, and I think it would be neat if canon went that way; maybe it would have more impact on me if there was more canon between them to draw upon. But, as it is, it just doesn't have any emotional resonance for me, even though I like both characters as individuals.
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Lin/Iroh the younger has become That One Ship for me, the one that has no canon support, but I ship it like burning anyway, and I can't find any fic for it, because they don't interact in canon, and it doesn't occur to anybody else to ship it. *insane fan flail* Oh well.
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I started out kinda hating it. I am not entirely sure why, but I think it's a combination of the obnoxious inevitability of it -- male main character + female best friend/buddy, of course they're gonna hook up -- plus liking them better as friends, plus not really enjoying the will they/won't they dynamic as it developed over the middle books in the series.
But something changed. I noticed when I reread the series a couple of years ago that not only was I not being put off by the Harry/Murphy UST, but I was actually kind of enjoying it. And then Changes made me actually ship them. (And then of course things blew up horribly. Because that is what their lives are like. :D)
I think at this point, I am honestly okay with however the series goes. I don't ship it so hard that I would be disappointed if they don't end up together. On the other hand, I kinda think they are going to end up together, eventually, and I'm okay with that too.
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(What really baffles me wrt Dresden Files ships though is the fandom's bizarre infatuation with Harry/Marcone. Okay, I'm not often into enemy slash anyway, but these two?! Why couldn't have fandom picked a nice potential buddy slash pairing like Dresden/Ramirez to latch onto?)
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Like you, I'm not really into enemyslash, so that is coloring my feelings, I'm sure! But given all the more palatable possibilities, I'm just not really sure why this particular ship has taken over fandom the way that it has. Due to my, er, firm antipathy for it *cough*, it makes a lot of the fic inaccessible to me. (And then the TV-verse fic is mostly Harry/Bob, which I don't mind in the same way, but it's just weird because Bob is such a radically different character!)
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