Always meant to come back and reply to this comment. It's been sitting open in a tab for ages! ENERGY, I DOES NOT HAVE IT.
The sweet spot for getting me into a fandom seems to be right where I adore a lot about a work and think it has phenomenal potential, but there's also a bunch of stuff that pisses me off about it. Move too far to either side and there's either nothing to hook me into writing fic for it because it seems too polished and squared away, or there's nothing to make fic rewarding for me because I don't enjoy the media enough.
ME TOO. Actually, I think this is true of a lot of people; the fandoms that take off and get big (which White Collar isn't; I'm thinking more of things like Stargate, X-Files, Avengers) usually seem to be the ones where fandom is drawn to the potential as much as the actual thing, but there has to BE something there in order to draw fandom into it. If it's too well-written, there are no empty spaces to fill up with stories. But it has to be good enough to wallow in it, for lack of a better word -- rewatching episodes obsessively enough to get all the canon details, letting the characters live in your head.
And White Collar ... the best thing I can say for the show, honestly (and it really IS a compliment!) is that it does so well at avoiding many of the crime-drama/genre show tropes that sometimes make me feel kicked in the face as a female viewer. In four seasons, there's never once been a sexualized female murder victim; no rapes or even rape threats; and nary a damsel in distress who doesn't actively participate in her own rescue.
Aside from the respectful handling of the female characters, I find it really refreshingly atypical that Diana and Jones are both as solidly middle/upper-middle-class as the white characters (nary a ghetto background to be found), and that Diana, like the straight male characters, gets to romance sexy women undercover.
And that stuff matters. Not that the show is perfect -- in particular I really wish the casting department would give us more diversity of all sorts in female guest stars ("thin leggy white brunette" does not describe the entire female population); and of course there's everything with Kate. Still, watching other crime-drama shows kind of ... throws me a little, actually, because White Collar is generally so good about that stuff.
(And sure, you can address rape as a plot element, or whatever. It's not like it can't be done well. But there are other stories to be told!)
...just a little shift in how it's handled would make it such a (more) fascinating show. (And open up so many avenues for character exploration that aren't the "tension arises because for some reason Neal and Peter are unable to trust each other, despite the trust they've built over the course of (season count - 1) seasons, and thus end up working against each other" subplot which they really enjoy bringing back, again and again.
Aargh, yes, this. As the show goes along, I'm getting increasingly frustrated by the writers' insistence on adhering to same basic formula with Neal on the anklet, Peter as his keeper, and the self-contained con/sting episodes. A whole season in which Neal was on the run and we had Neal & Peter's storylines running concurrently, or a half-season of Peter being assigned to The Cave, would've opened up a lot of new story areas AND given them plenty of new things for Peter and Neal to butt heads over, that don't rely on "one step forward, two steps back" character development.
"Screwed-up people earnestly trying to do good in screwed-up ways" is a major fiction kink of mine, as is "people trying to do good in situations where there are no good options", and variations thereof. Which makes White Collar a really fun sandbox to play in.
*nodnod* I agree! I think with me, it's some combination of: conflicts between characters who are all right in their own way; and the general theme of people trying to be good people and hang onto happiness in a messed-up world. And White Collar's slightly candy-colored take on that particular trope is ... I dunno, nice for a mental break (which is what fanfic is for me, basically), as opposed to a darker canon where it's still the same trope, and maybe better written, but not nearly as much fun to take a break from the real world and wallow in it.
(...I'm in the process of fighting with a fic whose basic theme is "Neal thinks he knows how to fix Peter's relationships, Elizabeth thinks she knows how to fix Neal's relationships, Peter assumes that the two of them know better than he does, and every single one of them is wrong. Fun times!)
This sounds like a lot of fun! *wants*
The fact that they screw up and they're not perfect and they try for goodness without really knowing how to get there or being fully cognizant of the ways in which they fall short is amazing. The problem is that we're told via all the various framing devices that their flaws are not meaningful flaws, and shown repeatedly (Ruiz, Kramer, Calloway, Pratt) that the people who call them on this stuff are at best too hasty in their judgments and not as smart as Our Heroes and at worst completely evil.
Yes, this, exactly! The guy in charge of The Cave (his name escapes me at the moment) is about the closest they've come so far to a semi-sympathetic antagonist who isn't going to let Our Heroes get away with their usual shit, but isn't portrayed as stupid or evil. I really wish they'd give us more of this sort of thing.
no subject
The sweet spot for getting me into a fandom seems to be right where I adore a lot about a work and think it has phenomenal potential, but there's also a bunch of stuff that pisses me off about it. Move too far to either side and there's either nothing to hook me into writing fic for it because it seems too polished and squared away, or there's nothing to make fic rewarding for me because I don't enjoy the media enough.
ME TOO. Actually, I think this is true of a lot of people; the fandoms that take off and get big (which White Collar isn't; I'm thinking more of things like Stargate, X-Files, Avengers) usually seem to be the ones where fandom is drawn to the potential as much as the actual thing, but there has to BE something there in order to draw fandom into it. If it's too well-written, there are no empty spaces to fill up with stories. But it has to be good enough to wallow in it, for lack of a better word -- rewatching episodes obsessively enough to get all the canon details, letting the characters live in your head.
And White Collar ... the best thing I can say for the show, honestly (and it really IS a compliment!) is that it does so well at avoiding many of the crime-drama/genre show tropes that sometimes make me feel kicked in the face as a female viewer. In four seasons, there's never once been a sexualized female murder victim; no rapes or even rape threats; and nary a damsel in distress who doesn't actively participate in her own rescue.
Aside from the respectful handling of the female characters, I find it really refreshingly atypical that Diana and Jones are both as solidly middle/upper-middle-class as the white characters (nary a ghetto background to be found), and that Diana, like the straight male characters, gets to romance sexy women undercover.
And that stuff matters. Not that the show is perfect -- in particular I really wish the casting department would give us more diversity of all sorts in female guest stars ("thin leggy white brunette" does not describe the entire female population); and of course there's everything with Kate. Still, watching other crime-drama shows kind of ... throws me a little, actually, because White Collar is generally so good about that stuff.
(And sure, you can address rape as a plot element, or whatever. It's not like it can't be done well. But there are other stories to be told!)
...just a little shift in how it's handled would make it such a (more) fascinating show. (And open up so many avenues for character exploration that aren't the "tension arises because for some reason Neal and Peter are unable to trust each other, despite the trust they've built over the course of (season count - 1) seasons, and thus end up working against each other" subplot which they really enjoy bringing back, again and again.
Aargh, yes, this. As the show goes along, I'm getting increasingly frustrated by the writers' insistence on adhering to same basic formula with Neal on the anklet, Peter as his keeper, and the self-contained con/sting episodes. A whole season in which Neal was on the run and we had Neal & Peter's storylines running concurrently, or a half-season of Peter being assigned to The Cave, would've opened up a lot of new story areas AND given them plenty of new things for Peter and Neal to butt heads over, that don't rely on "one step forward, two steps back" character development.
"Screwed-up people earnestly trying to do good in screwed-up ways" is a major fiction kink of mine, as is "people trying to do good in situations where there are no good options", and variations thereof. Which makes White Collar a really fun sandbox to play in.
*nodnod* I agree! I think with me, it's some combination of: conflicts between characters who are all right in their own way; and the general theme of people trying to be good people and hang onto happiness in a messed-up world. And White Collar's slightly candy-colored take on that particular trope is ... I dunno, nice for a mental break (which is what fanfic is for me, basically), as opposed to a darker canon where it's still the same trope, and maybe better written, but not nearly as much fun to take a break from the real world and wallow in it.
(...I'm in the process of fighting with a fic whose basic theme is "Neal thinks he knows how to fix Peter's relationships, Elizabeth thinks she knows how to fix Neal's relationships, Peter assumes that the two of them know better than he does, and every single one of them is wrong. Fun times!)
This sounds like a lot of fun! *wants*
The fact that they screw up and they're not perfect and they try for goodness without really knowing how to get there or being fully cognizant of the ways in which they fall short is amazing. The problem is that we're told via all the various framing devices that their flaws are not meaningful flaws, and shown repeatedly (Ruiz, Kramer, Calloway, Pratt) that the people who call them on this stuff are at best too hasty in their judgments and not as smart as Our Heroes and at worst completely evil.
Yes, this, exactly! The guy in charge of The Cave (his name escapes me at the moment) is about the closest they've come so far to a semi-sympathetic antagonist who isn't going to let Our Heroes get away with their usual shit, but isn't portrayed as stupid or evil. I really wish they'd give us more of this sort of thing.
And in conclusion, yay Diana! \o/