things i do not get

[schmerica]

a. People who say the reason they do not like a specific slash pairing is because Character A reads to them as straight, when they read *other* slash pairings with Character A. (I can get that you might not think a certain pairing has subtext to support it or whatever, but I don't get how you can go from "OMG RAY VECCHIO IS THE STRAIGHTEST GUY EVER" as the *specific* reason you don't like F/V and still love Ray/Ray. I mean, I know RayK is a superstud, but still.)

b. People who say RPS is gross and/or wrong, but who are perfectly willing to rec stuff and make exceptions for a story that involves the characters are cult leaders or murderers. (If kissing and being bouncy and joyous with their bandmates is, you know, disrespectful or stalkerly or blah blah rps is wrong ... then, uh, how exactly does your worldview make Flesh Mechanic okay? I mean, I think it's a great story, but I'm not going around declaiming the end of the world, so whatever.)

c. Why do I keep signing up for classes that take place during dinner time? ARGH. (I actually know the answer to this one. It's because I'm stupid and don't learn from my mistakes.)

d. Why do I find the combination of first and second person so engaging and charming? First person stories, I mean, that are directed to a specific person. Obviously all epistolary fic fits into this category, and dude, do I love the genre; and there's also china_shop's I love you without knowing how, and my own favorite of my due South stories. Hmmm. (I have nothing to add in parentheses for his part.)

Comments

[norah.livejournal.com]

Well, Ray/Ray doesn't have much to do with canon for me at all. If you're going to worry about canon, you gotta throw your Ray/Ray out the window with the bathwater.

Someone was saying in comments the other day that they read Kowalski-who-is-with-Vecchio as a totally different character than Kowalski-who-is-with-Fraser, and I can see that, a different man makes different choices, & etc. So, I read two different Vecchios, too. And the Vecchio in Ray/Ray is not canon!Vecchio either, most of the time - if it's done right he's still got the mean, but he's rarely as selfish, shallow, incompetent, and stupid as he is in canon.

But I wasn't saying that I don't like F/V because of the straight, though I certainly don't see the slash there. I don't like Vecchio because he is mean and incompetent most of the time in canon. I really couldn't believe it, because I read all the fic FIRST, and I kept waiting for him to get better. But I've now seen all but a few eps of S2 and he still makes me cringe.

[norah.livejournal.com]

Let me clarify: I'm not interested in Ray wars. If you like Vecchio, more power to you; you can enjoy the show 25% more than I can,a nd that can only be good. I'm just saying, I wanted to like Vecchio. I still occasionally like him in fic. But I didn't like him in canon, and I didn't see the slashiness, myself.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Heh, no, I got that that wasn't what you, specifically were saying about F/V -- the thing above is an argument I *have* seen by people, though, and more than once. There are plenty of reasons somebody might like Ray/Ray and not Fraser/Vecchio as pairings, and lots of people who did; this is just me thinking it's bizarre to have the explanation involve Vecchio's straightness.

(I *do* like Vecchio quite a bit, particularly in s2, but I can see where you're coming from, at least.)

[norah.livejournal.com]

I like Vecchio when he carries Fraser. I like him when he beats up Zuko. I like it that he worries about Irene, and that he wants love. I like that when Louis goes down, his first thought isn't for the Riv (though the way his character's been set up to that point, I found it surprising). I like it when he pays people to come listen to Fraser (but I worry about where that money comes from.) But each time I start to like him, he does something dumb or insensitive or wrong or mean, and at this point I just resent him for being so damn hard to like. Wah.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I like it when he pays people to come listen to Fraser (but I worry about where that money comes from.)

I thought that was the insurance money from the explosion with Louis?

[norah.livejournal.com]

Ah! Perhaps I missed that. It weirds me out how often Fraser takes money from Vecchio, and how comfortable he is doing it. I don't really get that.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

It weirds me out how often Fraser takes money from Vecchio, and how comfortable he is doing it. I don't really get that.

Oh, dude, me too. Although I'm not sure how much of it is because I saw Eclipse and the whole "friends and money don't mix" thing before s1 and 2. But still. WEIRD.

[axiom_of_stripe]

as i recall, it stops cold after victoria....

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Ooh, really? That's *very* interesting.

[norah.livejournal.com]

Nope. He does it in the Edge.

[norah.livejournal.com]

Or, wait, the one with the stripper...Body Language. That one. Vecchio tries to expense it, but Fraser doesn't necessarily know that.

[axiom_of_stripe]

he borrowed money for something personal? or during the course of a case -- because that's, you know, a legitimate for fraser to expect ray to expense (although fraser's definition of a legitimate case often causes problems with that...).

[sprat.livejournal.com]

I can definitely see where you're coming from--I didn't much like Vecchio at first either. But I think if you completely disregard everything that comes out of his mouth and just look at what he does, how he lives his life...he gets easier to sympathise with.

(Though really, it wasn't until I started writing from his pov that I got to like him, I think. Which is how it works a lot of the time for me. *g*)

[norah.livejournal.com]

Maybe so. Does he ever do anything that makes him a good cop, really? A good call? (other than Zuko, which was outside the law). I mean, I'd love to see him as competent, but most of the time it seems he's making things worse or trying to pull Fraser in the wrong direction or pissing off someone they need, or... I mean, Kowalski's wrong a lot of the time, but he's right a lot of the time too. I just haven't seen that with Vecchio, and it doesn't seem like Welsh respects him either.

[sprat.livejournal.com]

Hmm. No, you're right. I think he's not a very good cop. But the reasons I like Vecchio aren't the same as the reasons I like Kowalski. I love Kowalski's competance, I love his fierceness and his ability and...uh, all that good stuff. *g* But Vecchio I love because he tries to be good and a lot of the time he fucks that up--and standing next to Mr. Red Suit of Righteousness, all those fuck-ups are going to be pretty obvious and humiliating, too. But then he just gets up the next day and tries again. And just that, his tenacity, I think is admirable. Not drop-dead kill-me-now sexy...but enough to let me into his head. :)

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*nod* Yeah, I was thinking the same thing -- I'm not sure Vecchio's a very good cop, but that really has nothing to do with the reasons I love, I guess.

[norah.livejournal.com]

I can see that. I have so little patience with people who don't at least acknowledge their mistakes, let alone learn from them, that it still can't make me love canon!Vecchio. But I can see that.

[estrella30.livejournal.com]

But Vecchio I love because he tries to be good and a lot of the time he fucks that up--and standing next to Mr. Red Suit of Righteousness, all those fuck-ups are going to be pretty obvious and humiliating, too. But then he just gets up the next day and tries again. And just that, his tenacity, I think is admirable

God, yes. I do love your brain.

This, to me, is something that I think is, hmm, more apparent maybe as the series goes on. By the time you get to cotw Vecchio, its like, a new guy, to sound geeky, and THATS the guy I want to slash with RayK.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Character A reads to them as straight, when they read *other* slash pairings with Character A.

I think there are two classes of characters here - one is "they're just straight to me" ala Frank Pembleton or Toby Ziegler. I can't even conceive of either of them doing anything with another man, or having anything but the most fleeting bit of attraction to another man, so even just UST doesn't work for me with them. And I just won't read slash involving them. (Which isn't to say that Bayliss wasn't in love with Pembleton; or that Pembleton didn't love him in that comrades-in-arms/brothers kind of way. He just never reciprocated on the attraction.)

Then there are characters like Charlie and Ron Weasley, and James Potter - all of whom ping me as pretty straight, but I like Charlie with Oliver, so I accept it there, and I'll read Ron/Draco or Ron/Neville and be willing to suspend my disbelief for the length of a fic, and I believe Ron has a Harry clause, which allows for Ron/Harry and esp. Harry/Ron/Hermione.

James is also straight, but he made exceptions to experiment with Sirius when they were teenagers, and possibly with Remus as well. And he may have thought it his due to get handjobs or blowjobs from Peter when LIly was shooting him down.

So while I essentially don't believe most James slash, I can accept it with Sirius or Remus.

What I don't accept AT ALL about James is that he wasn't head over heels for Lily, and she for him, by the time they got married. I hate stories where one or the other settles or cheats or they only got together because of the prophecy. But that's my own issue and I'm aware of it and I try to avoid those stories.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*nod* And that totally makes a kind of sense to me -- I think what confuses me is that the due South case I've heard people arguing for Ray Vecchio as if he were part of your first class in some cases, and then going around and arguing for the second case for a different pairing. Which. A character should be consistently in one or the other, right? There are reasons you might believe one pairing or another, but that specific reason seems odd to me in that case.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think if you're gonna be all, "But he's straight!" then you have to either qualify it immediately ("except with RayK") or you look like you can't make up your mind, or you just don't like the other pairing.

[ladyagnew.livejournal.com]

Ooh, this is how I feel about Chris from nsync. The boy is straight for everyone but Lance. I don't know why, but he just is. I think Lance's inherent and enveloping gayness would, y'know, envelop Chris in a loving, warm cocoon of homosexuality. But I don't really avoid stories where he's paired with any of the others because I think Chris comes off as massively straight -- I think I just have OTP issues.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Well, OTPing is another factor, sure.

[estrella30.livejournal.com]

(I actually know the answer to this one. It's because I'm stupid and don't learn from my mistakes.)

But you're PRETTY!

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*twirls*

[akite.livejournal.com]

Just reading comments here and expressing what I think. When I started out in dS, I wouldn't have read Ray/Ray on a bet. Then, well, you know, some good writers convinced me, and I got bitten by the bug too. I still don't care much for F/V, mainly because I don't see their relationship as slashy. I do love Vecchio and when I write Ray/Ray I either place it before either of them ever met Fraser or after Vegas and RayK is back in Chicago for whatever reason. I totally freaked the first time I heard RayV talking in my head. OMGWTF! Get outta here! :g:

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

I think that post-Vegas RayV is less straight than the one we see in seasons one and two. Or at least, hrm, no, not less straight. Less sheltered? Less constrained by convention? He's seen a lot more, and he's a lot more worldly -- in the early seasons, he wants to think he's worldly, but he keeps stuffing it up. And I think the guy he is when he gets back from Vegas is just more likely to just go "yeah, what the hell, life's short" and roll with it.