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I feel vaguely guilty for immersing myself in Sherlock Holmes fandom without having read any of the books; I've watched bits and pieces of various television series over the years, and I saw the new movie (and would dearly like to see it again, but the internet has been extraordinarily uncooperative on that point), and I've read Neil Gaiman's A Study in Emerald, but none of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work.
I only feel vaguely guilty, though- and since reading more is one of my New Year's Resolutions, I do intend to start reading the books soon. At any rate, I'm now working my way through the kink meme at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sherlockkink, and the lack of Holmes/Watson/Mary strikes me.
There's a lot of movie-fic that completely ignores Mary, or does away with her in some manner, and it all reminds me a great deal of the way Uhura gets booted in AOS Kirk/Spock fic. It leaves the same bad taste in the back of my mind, too, although I do find it less upsetting in the case of Holmes fandom. The new movie isn't trying to negate the original canon, and within the movie there is plenty of justification for Mary being sidelined to make way for Watson's relationship with Holmes. I suppose I find it disappointing because I liked Mary for her ability to see through Holmes' bullshit and disguises, and I see all sorts of potential for her laying down the rules of sharing Watson with Holmes, while Watson looks between the two of them and wonders why he doesn't get a say in anything.
(I'm still a little irrational about my hatred of the Nu-Trek fandom in general and Nu-Kirk/Spock in particular, so that will have to be a rant for another time, I think.)
Hm. I hate feeling like I've become some sort of obsessively authoritarian observer of canon; I don't think I have, really. I have no problem with creating relationships with only the barest shreds of evidentiary support from the source material; it just bothers me when canonical relationships are erased to make way for new ones. I am wary of kneejerk fangirl misogyny, and I really prefer a happy polyamorous ending to these sorts of triangles.
I think White Collar's acceptance of Peter and Elizabeth's relationship has spoiled me, although it's certainly true that the Sherlock Holmes movie doesn't attempt to make Mary the sort of focal point in Watson's life that Holmes is. I wonder if it isn't partly just that she didn't have enough screentime to be interesting to most fans; we see very little of her, but we hear all about how terrible the wedding will be from Holmes throughout the movie. And even though Holmes is being transparently irrational, it's hard to like a character when the lead is going on about how she'll get warty and hideous.
Of course, I may just like Mary so much because Rachel McAddams didn't really sell me on Irene Adler.
Also? Good god damn, Robert Downey, Jr., could you stop casually touching Jude Law in interviews and talking about how Holmes and Watson are GAY GAY GAY or talking about how much of a delight it was to work with Jude Law and giving him pet names and mourning the loss of his mustache I DO NOT INDULGE IN RPS, NOT EVEN FOR YOU. >_
I only feel vaguely guilty, though- and since reading more is one of my New Year's Resolutions, I do intend to start reading the books soon. At any rate, I'm now working my way through the kink meme at
sherlockkink, and the lack of Holmes/Watson/Mary strikes me.There's a lot of movie-fic that completely ignores Mary, or does away with her in some manner, and it all reminds me a great deal of the way Uhura gets booted in AOS Kirk/Spock fic. It leaves the same bad taste in the back of my mind, too, although I do find it less upsetting in the case of Holmes fandom. The new movie isn't trying to negate the original canon, and within the movie there is plenty of justification for Mary being sidelined to make way for Watson's relationship with Holmes. I suppose I find it disappointing because I liked Mary for her ability to see through Holmes' bullshit and disguises, and I see all sorts of potential for her laying down the rules of sharing Watson with Holmes, while Watson looks between the two of them and wonders why he doesn't get a say in anything.
(I'm still a little irrational about my hatred of the Nu-Trek fandom in general and Nu-Kirk/Spock in particular, so that will have to be a rant for another time, I think.)
Hm. I hate feeling like I've become some sort of obsessively authoritarian observer of canon; I don't think I have, really. I have no problem with creating relationships with only the barest shreds of evidentiary support from the source material; it just bothers me when canonical relationships are erased to make way for new ones. I am wary of kneejerk fangirl misogyny, and I really prefer a happy polyamorous ending to these sorts of triangles.
I think White Collar's acceptance of Peter and Elizabeth's relationship has spoiled me, although it's certainly true that the Sherlock Holmes movie doesn't attempt to make Mary the sort of focal point in Watson's life that Holmes is. I wonder if it isn't partly just that she didn't have enough screentime to be interesting to most fans; we see very little of her, but we hear all about how terrible the wedding will be from Holmes throughout the movie. And even though Holmes is being transparently irrational, it's hard to like a character when the lead is going on about how she'll get warty and hideous.
Of course, I may just like Mary so much because Rachel McAddams didn't really sell me on Irene Adler.
Also? Good god damn, Robert Downey, Jr., could you stop casually touching Jude Law in interviews and talking about how Holmes and Watson are GAY GAY GAY or talking about how much of a delight it was to work with Jude Law and giving him pet names and mourning the loss of his mustache I DO NOT INDULGE IN RPS, NOT EVEN FOR YOU. >_
Tags:
It's snowing here and I DO NOT APPROVE.
Hmm. Let's see if I can ramble this out. WC fandom accepted Elizabeth (I think in part) because:
* Peter is just so goofily in love with her that it hurts
* Neal thinks she's awesomecake with awesome sauce on top
* Elizabeth clearly thinks Peter is adorable enough to put up with the Thursday dinner syndrome* and the late nights
* Elizabeth seems to think Neal is cute enough to let him stick around (Cute like puppies, not cute like girls. I think.)
Holmes/Mary/Watson on the other hand:
* Holmes hates the idea of Mary
* Mary isn't real thrilled with the reality of Holmes (I think she's justified, though.)
* Watson doesn't have enough (any) screentime alone with Mary for us to see what they're like together
TL;DR: Peter/Elizabeth is ten years strong like cement and Elizabeth is too awesome to dump. Also, it would make Peter the biggest jerk in the universe. Mary/Watson (and Spock/Uhura) don't have enough canon support to hold together the same way. Fandom took Lex's comment about Whitney to heart (A boyfriend is not a husband) and Holmes and ST are not overlong texts.
ANYWAY. Mary, fleshed out, would probably work better with H/W than Irene; Irene and H would overwhelm W, rather than W and M wrestling H to the ground when he's overmanic. Which I think would be awesome, and if Mary can deal with the indoor target practice, M/W should definitely stick around on Baker Street after the nuptials.
Posting before Volly goes to sleep.
Post!
*Thursday dinner syndrome: "Hey, what are you having for dinner Thursday?"
"Um. Food? I might make pasta if I feel like it."
"For *Thanksgiving*?"
I think you've seen me do this.
We have no snow but we do have THE HOWLING, RAVENOUS WIND and drafty windows.
White Collar also reminds me of how rare it is for a main character to have a long term, established romantic relationship- how many shows out there have happily married main characters?)
Mary really was just a Mary-shaped object, which is unfortunate. I think she could have liked Holmes just fine, if Holmes hadn't decided to view her as the enemy. I have more half-chewed thoughts about how she comes to terms with the fact that she'll be sharing Watson with Holmes no matter what, so really, Holmes is the only person who'd need to get more on board with things, but I'm not sure if I'm misremembering bits of the movie at this point. Hrm.
New Leverage and Chuck and Being Human this month! It's like second Christmas!
Re: We have no snow but we do have THE HOWLING, RAVENOUS WIND and drafty windows.
The only one I can think of, where the characters have been married since before we met them and both characters are regulars and they're goofy about each other and you don't see B plots about how Spouse A is mad at Spouse B for action X is ... Firefly. Which, well. There are all sorts of reasons that marriage didn't really bring the OT3.
I don't think you're wrong that female characters have been given the boot, but I think (based on my quickn'dirty off the cuff fandom headcount) that the big problem has been that most BSOs aren't married, or are unhappily married, or are only in semi-committed relationships. Even QL, where Al&Sam were married (to women! usually!), we never really saw the wives. They were only names and wife-shapes.
I keep coming back to Wilson (House/Wilson) and in the stories that touched the marriage issue at all, you had:
H/W predated any of W's marriages
H/W quit/stopped while W was married
H/W only happened after Julie left
... Man, there really are no happily married BSOs in my fandoms. (Granted, I'm self-selecting and have an adultery squick, but still.)
(And White Collar comes back on the 19th!)
Re: We have no snow but we do have THE HOWLING, RAVENOUS WIND and drafty windows.
(It occurs to me to ask myself, do I even have any slash ships in BSG? I don't think I do.)
Re: Mary in Holmes, I think the single biggest issue is that her role in the movie was Wilson's Beard. For heaven's sake, the NY Times review was about how she was only there in the movie to make Holmes jealous.
But yeah, I've definitely gotten sick of the general fannish tendency of getting rid of inconvenient women.
Re: We have no snow but we do have THE HOWLING, RAVENOUS WIND and drafty windows.
I totally agree. More women! More OT3! (I'd say more het, but most het scares me.) More Robin/Barney and awesome het! Down with fannish misogyny!
Actually it's just a bit overcast and in the 50s here
Yay women! Although the thing I've noticed about myself on the fannish misogyny front is that I keep saying of good het: "It's like slash, they're equal partners!" Fr'instance, I am highly in favor of Robin/Barney: Bros 4 Life!