Damned if you do, damned if you don't
Oct. 18th, 2009 02:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mf_luder_xfYou know, I don't think I will ever understand the sheer hate that lies in the fandoms of Stargate: Atlantis and Supernatural. I mean, both shows have served their purpose. While there are certainly some writing issues, that happens in every show. But people become so defensive of their characters and it's like, I realize I'm heavily involved too, but IT'S JUST A TV SHOW. And if you really dislike it that much, STOP WATCHING. It's not worth your time and stress, you know?
I have never hated a character I wasn't supposed to (and frankly, that one and only role is Diana Fowley, stupid bitch). I may have extreme dislike (the twins on Heroes), but I don't hate. And I don't understand the need to shove my hate off on others same as i don't get shoving my OTP off on others. I've always been ok with het and slash and kinks and the like. if I'm not interested, I won't read it. But I don't feel the need to rage at someone because their tastes don't line up with mine or blame writers/actors for something I don't particularly like on my show. TV writing is a process of bargaining, much like government. We don't all like the laws passed, but they came out of several people's creations and time and effort. There are as many anti-gun people as pro-gun people. We can't make everyone happy. And quite frankly, I see more people up in arms (heh) about TV show characters than about the things that matter like the ability of criminal offenders to not have to go through background checks. At each stage, multiple people want to see something different from a show. Just watch the movie "The TV Set" with David Duchovny. Prime example of how TV is made. Read Joe Mallozzi's blog. The man is not out to get Sam/Jack shippers or McSheppers or out to kill off Atlantis. He may be a producer, but he still has to deal with the networks and larger forces. He didn't single-handedly cancel Atlantis out of spite. He would have been being double-paid if SGA and SGU were on.
Sometimes, there are legitimate reasons for disliking a show's progression. I gotta admit, the Stargate universe doesn't tend to put people of different colors in the best roles. Teyla and Ronon were underused, Teal'c was an alien, etc, etc. But I don't believe all the main deciders on the production staffs are racist. Not every character on Supernatural gets in the way of the brothers. They enhance their relationship. Two people don't operate in isolation. There will be people, supernatural things trying to manipulate them. How they deal with it is part of what makes the show good. Us vs Them doesn't mean Us and only Us. So for all you Ruby haters, congrats, you outguessed the rest of us. But Jo never did anything to you. She's not evil, she wasn't trying to break up the brothers.
Until recently, I was always in the Wincest camp. And while I can understand not liking Wincest, all you have to do is not read it. Now that I'm reading Dean/Cas, I'm suddenly getting even more of that ("this story is so good I can't believe I read it, there's *Wincest* in it!), and then I'm getting all the Dean/Cas hate from Wincesters. No compatibility, really? And why do we all have to hate one another's ships. GIVE IT A REST. We all talk about toleration and being acceptable of differences; we can't be a bit ship-flexible?
I never understood how there could be so much love and hate for McKay, either. How can you hate a main character of a show and still watch it? People who were so down on any McKay eps made no sense to me. His flaws were what made him interesting. Same with Sheppard, same with Weir, and so on. No one on that show was perfect and that's OK.
I'm not saying don't harsh on my squee. Be critical! Don't handwave over everything. but don't hate on me and my pairing or anyone else's. The great thing about fandom is that you can ignore something. There doesn't need to be confrontation. But no one character is useless (except the twins in Heroes, lol); they all have some purpose to the plot line. whether you like that purpose or not is another matter.
My point is, like, don't like who you will. But maybe, if you really hate someone so much, you should stop watching. Or maybe you should take off your hate-goggles and just try to enjoy the show. I mean, I by no means love all the characters at the same time. I've been very upset with Dean until the end of 5x5. I'm still somewhat annoyed at Cas. Sheppard was never forgiven by me for never forgiving McKay of his actions on Duranda. But that doesn't mean I hate the characters. We're dealing with human beings and "the real world". It's not perfect and it certainly can't satisfy everyone.
I've just never seen so much hate in any fandom except these two. I mean, even the Scully hate isn't as extreme (ok, Doggett/Reyes hate comes closer but still no dice), and somehow Heroes manages to be pretty friendly even when the writers ARE fucking it up so bad.
Sometimes, I find myself too middle of the road for this life.
(And in case you're wondering, this isn't directed at any one person/post/whatever. These things bubble up from time to time and I'm sort of annoyed with all the SGU hate right now as well as the Ruby and Castiel hate.)
I have never hated a character I wasn't supposed to (and frankly, that one and only role is Diana Fowley, stupid bitch). I may have extreme dislike (the twins on Heroes), but I don't hate. And I don't understand the need to shove my hate off on others same as i don't get shoving my OTP off on others. I've always been ok with het and slash and kinks and the like. if I'm not interested, I won't read it. But I don't feel the need to rage at someone because their tastes don't line up with mine or blame writers/actors for something I don't particularly like on my show. TV writing is a process of bargaining, much like government. We don't all like the laws passed, but they came out of several people's creations and time and effort. There are as many anti-gun people as pro-gun people. We can't make everyone happy. And quite frankly, I see more people up in arms (heh) about TV show characters than about the things that matter like the ability of criminal offenders to not have to go through background checks. At each stage, multiple people want to see something different from a show. Just watch the movie "The TV Set" with David Duchovny. Prime example of how TV is made. Read Joe Mallozzi's blog. The man is not out to get Sam/Jack shippers or McSheppers or out to kill off Atlantis. He may be a producer, but he still has to deal with the networks and larger forces. He didn't single-handedly cancel Atlantis out of spite. He would have been being double-paid if SGA and SGU were on.
Sometimes, there are legitimate reasons for disliking a show's progression. I gotta admit, the Stargate universe doesn't tend to put people of different colors in the best roles. Teyla and Ronon were underused, Teal'c was an alien, etc, etc. But I don't believe all the main deciders on the production staffs are racist. Not every character on Supernatural gets in the way of the brothers. They enhance their relationship. Two people don't operate in isolation. There will be people, supernatural things trying to manipulate them. How they deal with it is part of what makes the show good. Us vs Them doesn't mean Us and only Us. So for all you Ruby haters, congrats, you outguessed the rest of us. But Jo never did anything to you. She's not evil, she wasn't trying to break up the brothers.
Until recently, I was always in the Wincest camp. And while I can understand not liking Wincest, all you have to do is not read it. Now that I'm reading Dean/Cas, I'm suddenly getting even more of that ("this story is so good I can't believe I read it, there's *Wincest* in it!), and then I'm getting all the Dean/Cas hate from Wincesters. No compatibility, really? And why do we all have to hate one another's ships. GIVE IT A REST. We all talk about toleration and being acceptable of differences; we can't be a bit ship-flexible?
I never understood how there could be so much love and hate for McKay, either. How can you hate a main character of a show and still watch it? People who were so down on any McKay eps made no sense to me. His flaws were what made him interesting. Same with Sheppard, same with Weir, and so on. No one on that show was perfect and that's OK.
I'm not saying don't harsh on my squee. Be critical! Don't handwave over everything. but don't hate on me and my pairing or anyone else's. The great thing about fandom is that you can ignore something. There doesn't need to be confrontation. But no one character is useless (except the twins in Heroes, lol); they all have some purpose to the plot line. whether you like that purpose or not is another matter.
My point is, like, don't like who you will. But maybe, if you really hate someone so much, you should stop watching. Or maybe you should take off your hate-goggles and just try to enjoy the show. I mean, I by no means love all the characters at the same time. I've been very upset with Dean until the end of 5x5. I'm still somewhat annoyed at Cas. Sheppard was never forgiven by me for never forgiving McKay of his actions on Duranda. But that doesn't mean I hate the characters. We're dealing with human beings and "the real world". It's not perfect and it certainly can't satisfy everyone.
I've just never seen so much hate in any fandom except these two. I mean, even the Scully hate isn't as extreme (ok, Doggett/Reyes hate comes closer but still no dice), and somehow Heroes manages to be pretty friendly even when the writers ARE fucking it up so bad.
Sometimes, I find myself too middle of the road for this life.
(And in case you're wondering, this isn't directed at any one person/post/whatever. These things bubble up from time to time and I'm sort of annoyed with all the SGU hate right now as well as the Ruby and Castiel hate.)
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Date: 2009-10-18 10:51 pm (UTC)I've gone both ways. I started to get fed up with Supernatural in ~season 2, because I don't really care all that much about Dean, and all of the Sam-hate from Dean fans on the internets got me to the point where I haaaaaated Dean. So I stopped watching. I tried watching again in season 3, and staying away from SPN fandom got me back to not hating on Dean, but then other things about the show started irritating me. So I just kinda gave up and stopped watching.
The thing I didnt' do was spend hours and hours raging about how the showrunners are big assholes for not writing the show I want to watch. They're not on my payroll, you know? Seriously, I don't get that fan POV.
R.e. SGA, I've never liked McKay all that much. My favorite McKay scenes are the ones where he's with Teyla. I wasn't a McKay/Teyla shipper, I just really loved their dynamic and always wanted more of it. Whereas the Sheppard and McKay dynamic didn't do much for me, and McKay by himself was just annoying. I solved that particular problem by getting over it for teamy eps, and skipping McKay-centric or McKay&Sheppard-centric eps, and I was a very happy little SGA fan.
(Well, until the final season, when I got so bummed that the show was going off the air that I stopped watching. Am planning to ask for s5 on DVD for Christmas, though, because am over the woe and now I'm dying to watch the eps I missed.)
As far as SGU, I am one of those SGA (and SG1) fans who is not watching it, but not because I'm pissed off. I wasn't impressed with the way SGU was pitched in comparison to SGA -- they emphasized things that really did make it sound like 90210 in space, which, yeesh, I don't like 90210 on Earth, I definitely don't want to watch it in space. But I figured I'd wait and see once it got on the air.
But since then I've seen commercials -- in which there are (mostly white, argh) dudes running around doing exciting things and gorgeous women...bathing in ponds. Naked. Whut? Also, I'm hearing that it's trying to be like BSG, and I did not like BSG (so depressing omg; adventures in outer space are supposed to be FUN, not depressing. Wah). So. That's why I've decided to skip SGU.
(Admittedly, I'm just not watching a lot of TV in general. I think I might have gotten curious enough about SGU, since I *am* a fan of the Stargate 'verse, to watch it, if I was in more of a TV mood.)
And I do get being upset that one show was essentially shelved to make way for another show, but on the other hand, are these angry fans new to television? Is this the first show they've ever watched? Because, um, shows end. They get canceled and go off the air. The reasons may be different in each case, but the common theme is: they end. (Unless they are Law & Order or Doctor Who, and then they go on for eleventy billion years.) I get being bummed about a show ending, but being pissed off? I don't get that.