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Subtext is awesome, tons of fun, provides endless opportunities for speculation and entertainment, and is all around one of the best toys in the toybox when it comes to fannish pursuits. You know what subtext isn't? Text. That's how come there's the "sub" in front of it. And what I really can't figure out is why that's supposed to be a bad thing. Explicitly textual pairings are fun and all, but there's a limited number of places to go from there fannishly speaking most of the time. You lose control over how and when and why and where your favored pairing gets together, and that's got some serious disadvantages as far as what we do.
One of the reaons I came tumbling back down on the het side of the fence watching Doctor Who is, oh, hey subtext, awesome. Subtext that has very little chance of becoming text...more awesome. The Doctor himself is one big ball of alien subtext with motivations and feelings that we never, ever, get to pin down entirely, 'cause they aren't human. COOL. The options are pretty much unlimited as to where you can go with that, and I find myself completely resistant to arguments that would box it in. There are eighteen gazillionty shows where you can see a standard het romance develop, quite a few of which I enjoy a lot. But how many give you the chance to play like this? I really, really don't understand the urge to take that away.
It's like, you know my lego theory of fandom? To me this is like getting a whole pile of different shapes and sizes and some of them glow in the dark and some of them sparkle and some of them are bendy and then complaining because there isn't a picture on the box to copy exactly. And then deciding that if there was a picture on the box, it would be of the thing you just built, because it's obvious that the bendy thing and that glowy thing go together like so, even though the bendy thing and the sparkly thing fit a different way, so clearly, all other creations are inferior. And that's when I get the urge to turn into a two year old and kick your blocks to pieces. Which is definitely not a cool reaction, and it's one I'm trying to work on 'cause life is more fun when all the bendy, sparkly, glowy blocks are in play.
Um...in conclusion, 'ship wars are stupid and subtext rules.
One of the reaons I came tumbling back down on the het side of the fence watching Doctor Who is, oh, hey subtext, awesome. Subtext that has very little chance of becoming text...more awesome. The Doctor himself is one big ball of alien subtext with motivations and feelings that we never, ever, get to pin down entirely, 'cause they aren't human. COOL. The options are pretty much unlimited as to where you can go with that, and I find myself completely resistant to arguments that would box it in. There are eighteen gazillionty shows where you can see a standard het romance develop, quite a few of which I enjoy a lot. But how many give you the chance to play like this? I really, really don't understand the urge to take that away.
It's like, you know my lego theory of fandom? To me this is like getting a whole pile of different shapes and sizes and some of them glow in the dark and some of them sparkle and some of them are bendy and then complaining because there isn't a picture on the box to copy exactly. And then deciding that if there was a picture on the box, it would be of the thing you just built, because it's obvious that the bendy thing and that glowy thing go together like so, even though the bendy thing and the sparkly thing fit a different way, so clearly, all other creations are inferior. And that's when I get the urge to turn into a two year old and kick your blocks to pieces. Which is definitely not a cool reaction, and it's one I'm trying to work on 'cause life is more fun when all the bendy, sparkly, glowy blocks are in play.
Um...in conclusion, 'ship wars are stupid and subtext rules.
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