Fannish Friday
Jun. 2nd, 2023 03:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
phantomtomato- Marking the end of Succession this week! I've been watching live since the start and it's very sad to
realize that we've finally come to an end. The high point of this season
for me was Logan's death episode, which hit as hard as I could have ever
hoped. I appreciated that the back half of the season was generally an
emotional comedown from that—not without its crises and revelations and
striking moments, of course, but with nothing else so all-encompassing as
the death. This season did not feel crowded. We had a resolution to every
major plot thread that I can think of, including the succession question,
but none overshadowed the loss of Logan for me. Everything which takes
place in the wake of that is still so strongly shaped by his
presence/absence. I was extremely pleased by how this came out and I
couldn't be happier with the show.
Strong recommendation for anyone who can stomach television about miserable, unlikeable people. It's incredibly (and darkly) funny and has devastating emotional moments in addition to being one of the best-acted things I've seen in a while. - Also the end of Ted Lasso. I've had a
rocky relationship with this show since season two, and while three worked
better for me, I think it's primarily because my expectations had been
lowered. I'd been really bothered by some of the choices around the
characters of color (Sam, Nate, and Dr. Sharon) in s2. S3 showed they
learned no lessons around sensitively handling minoritized characters
(Shandy, Jack). The pacing was a mess. But, freed from thinking that this
show was going to be great, I could have fun with the parts that were good,
like Roy and Jamie becoming friends, or Rebecca's romance with the Dutch
boat guy and total rejection of Rupert.
I'm glad to have stuck it out to the end, but I struggle to recommend it. I feel like this is a show I won't ever think about having watched in another year. - There's this phenomenon that nearly always gets me to love a ship, when
present, and that I always add to the ships I make up: The Gap, or the
period of time in which parties in some pre-existing relationship are
separated and undergo their own development experiences. Elsewhere on
Dreamwidth there's been a revival of interest in a completed webcomic,
Check Please!, which I haven't read—but the specific ship being talked
about most is one wherein two characters who were friends and sexual
partners as teens reunite as adults, one of them well underway in his
career and the other getting a late start to it thanks to his struggle with
addiction and mental health. It is fascinating. Not only have I
enjoyed a great deal of this fic fandom-blind, but it's really helped me
codify this trend. I reflected on parts of this a
month ago when I posted about how I see Tom Riddle's life path over on
tumblr, but that was really focused on a single character's journey. The
Gap is about two of them together.
It's in so many canon couples that I ship:
- David Blaize and Frank Maddox spend time apart at the end of each of their two books together. The first gap gives David time to explore other friendships and the possibility of romance with a girl, but it's Frank's return to his side for a sweet bedside vigil which reaffirms their commitment to one another. The second gap gives David time to think about what he wants out of their lifelong commitment and decide on an asexual but romantic love, which he then gets up the strength to propose to Frank. This is personally unsatisfying to me, but I love the structure of the story and think the gaps work well to highlight the importance of the relationship, even if I think the asexuality bit should be retconned in fic!
- Sidney Ellwood and Henry Gaunt in In Memoriam are first separated when Henry leaves to serve in WWI, and their first reunion allows the commencement of their sexual relationship. The second separation, due to the circumstances of that war, allows Henry to emphasize his romantic commitment to Sidney when they come back together, something which had been uncertain during their first reunion.
- Ralph Lanyon and Laurie Odell in The Charioteer have the very briefest moment of intimacy before Ralph is sent down from their school, and thus begins seven years of separation, with a delightfully tragic little fake-death at the start of their reunion. The Gap gives Laurie time to accept his homosexuality and start to ask himself what sort of partner he wants in life, and gives Ralph a chance to explore new sexual experiences with supportive/enthusiastic partners in safer circumstances. They don't have an easy time of coming back together, but their desire to learn about one another again helps them overcome those difficulties.
There's so many more non-canon ships that I would explore this way: Oliver and Edward from The Fifth Form, Scaife and Verney in The Hill; I have written so many fics around this idea for all of my favorite pairings. The central division between the halves of my Tom Riddle and Edmund Pevensie WIP is a one-year gap—I can't help inserting them even in circumstances where I get to define the relationship!
I love how The Gap gives characters an opportunity to be intimate strangers. They know parts of one another so dearly that they fall into unconscious patterns, making a meal that someone loves or cracking a joke that always used to land, and at the same time they're also uncomfortably aware that things have changed: the joke doesn't land, the friend suggests eating somewhere new and unfamiliar. They are forced to talk with one another and relearn what is appropriate and true, but the existing baseline of familiarity seeps in to shape and color those conversations. I crave the intimacy of asking awkward questions about how one's family is doing while lying naked in bed after sex, and the fear of being too physically comfortable with one another that pushes characters to wrap around to the other end and keep a distance that feels artificial for casual friends.
I've known that I love this construct for a while, but I suppose I'm newly high on it again and thinking about the specific mechanisms which make it work for me. Now to determine how to highlight this in an exchange letter, mm? - I am dying for RMSE to open sign-ups. <3
no subject
Date: 2023-06-03 09:12 pm (UTC)It’s always so interesting to read your thoughts on narratives and storytelling. Thanks for sharing!
And re:succession: it’s a weird feeling to have no new episode to look forward to now that it’s over. For me, this has been a show that I really enjoy while I’m watching it, but not something I think about when I’m not.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-04 03:45 pm (UTC)I’m excited to read your RMSE letter! I haven’t started putting mine together yet, but I saw on tumblr that you have. It should be fun. <3
Ah, I love how you put it about intimacy/unfamiliarity. Yes, that’s precisely my point. Perhaps the problem is really that I’m a glutton and I want an excuse to use every emotion all at once rather than having it pick one and settle on it! 😅 And thank you for being kind about my narrative thoughts. It’s just very, if not here in fandom, where? I cannot possibly be expected to keep this all in my head forever!
I’m glad that Succession ended when it did. A fifth season wouldn’t have been good, I think, even if it was fun to watch in the moment—and I agree with you that it was fun in the moment! Too much repetition of the same theme goes from clever artistic commentary to drudgery. I think of Silicon Valley that way: I loved the show when it was on and the first few seasons felt brilliant, then the seasonal arcs just kept being the same thing, and as funny as it was in the moment of viewing I could no longer tell you what actually happened.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-04 11:49 am (UTC)Another fandom that I can definitely recommend for reunion situations (and general period vibes) is Brideshead Revisited. The original book is a complicated fave of mine (briefly summarised, I adore the first half and am pretty meh about the second), but there are lots of utterly beautiful reunion fics on Ao3 which fix my issues with the ending!
no subject
Date: 2023-06-04 04:04 pm (UTC)Oh, thank you! I’m delighted that talking about reunions was inspiring. :D Yes, I think Guy and Fowler reuniting later in life is really appealing as a premise: Guy has his own attachment to the power and structures of his youth, even if he fit in them more poorly than Fowler did. What does it mean for him to be a career diplomat, for example, during an era when there seems to be more at stake in the role? It isn’t the sort of idle and glamorous appointment that he daydreams about (even if it never truly was that thing, and those were a boy’s fantasies—there’s definitely less glamor in postwar reconstruction than in the Continent as he knew it in the 30s). And depending on exactly when they reunite, there’s different ways to play with what it means to be an adult gay man—Burgess being one such obvious inspiration during more of a 50s era take, but what if they reunite after 1967? They could be in their late 40s/50s then, a great time to think about how each of them has chosen to handle a life and career alongside their sexuality. You’re right, Fowler and Bennett are a great reunion pairing!!
Aaah that’s great news, as a copy of Brideshead has been sitting by my couch for months now. I’ll push to read it soon, knowing it’s got good reunion potential! Thanks for the warning about the second half, by the way. Fic can fix a lot of things, but it’s always nice to be able to brace for a little disappointment.