Further to my previous entry on Waterloo Road (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
saaski_moql, incidentally, informs me that the video clip in that entry is available outside the UK, so if you are interested in sexually confused schoolboys you may wish to check it out): here is a scene from the previous episode (it begins around 5.45; the link should take you straight there), which ends with Josh kissing the girl he's been pressured into asking out but maintaining eye contact with Finn as he does so.
This presses so many of my buttons it's unbelievable. (Although I do feel rather sorry for poor Lauren.)
Waterloo Road doesn't really seem to have an LJ-based fandom, so in trying to find out how people reacted to the Josh/Finn storyline I've ended up visiting fora. One difference that strikes me is the way forum-based fandoms and fandoms on Livejournal notice different things; when I see people on fora saying the kiss 'came out of nowhere' I want to flail around and say 'HOW CAN YOU BE SO DENSE?' It was massively foreshadowed in the previous episode! Josh's excitement at being invited to Finn's house and trying to persuade him not to reschedule to a time when his parents would be home! Josh glancing over at Finn during the sex education lesson and quickly looking away when Finn looked back! Josh's little smile when Finn called him a 'good-looking guy'! The scene where Josh maintained eye contact with Finn all the way through kissing Lauren with a song called 'Cheat on Me' playing in the background seriously how did you not get that.
But, of course, I've learnt to notice these things through being in LJ fandom, through being a 'shipper. When I first began reading the Harry Potter books and the concept of 'shipping was an alien one to me, the Hermione/Ron implications went entirely over my head, although I do remember inexplicably suspecting that there was something going on between, erm, Hermione and Hagrid.
I suppose I'm slightly resentful because the Josh/Finn storyline contains all these wonderful implications before Josh's crush becomes explicit, but Waterloo Road fans failed to notice it. BUILDUP IS WASTED ON YOU, WATERLOO ROAD FORA. Jack/Ianto in Torchwood annoyed me because it came literally out of nowhere, but it's a tremendously popular pairing (nothing against its 'shippers, who will have their own interpretation of it, but I wasn't a fan of it as it was portrayed in canon); meanwhile, here's a canonical m/m pairing with unrequitedness and self-denial and previously implied attraction and all the other things I love in fiction, and yet nobody is 'shipping it because its fandom is of a different sort. Blast.
why can't I stop thinking about Josh/Finn I'm not even a Waterloo Road fan NO RIONA YOU CAN'T WRITE INTROSPECTIVE JOSH FANFICTION STOP IT
I don't really write unrequited love much, do I? Perhaps I should, because I certainly enjoy reading or watching it. Something I've always suspected but had confirmed with Will/Emma in Glee is that, no matter how much I may 'ship a pairing, I shall lose all interest the moment the characters get together in canon. Unrequited love (Josh/Finn) is great! Requited love that can never be acknowledged because of the circumstances (Arthur/Guinevere) or because one character has issues with it (Patrick Jane/anyone) is great! But the moment at which UST stops being U is the moment at which I stop being interested. Even if problems then crop up to drive the characters apart again, I can never quite 'ship it with the same intensity. It's a shame.
saaski_moql, incidentally, informs me that the video clip in that entry is available outside the UK, so if you are interested in sexually confused schoolboys you may wish to check it out): here is a scene from the previous episode (it begins around 5.45; the link should take you straight there), which ends with Josh kissing the girl he's been pressured into asking out but maintaining eye contact with Finn as he does so.This presses so many of my buttons it's unbelievable. (Although I do feel rather sorry for poor Lauren.)
Waterloo Road doesn't really seem to have an LJ-based fandom, so in trying to find out how people reacted to the Josh/Finn storyline I've ended up visiting fora. One difference that strikes me is the way forum-based fandoms and fandoms on Livejournal notice different things; when I see people on fora saying the kiss 'came out of nowhere' I want to flail around and say 'HOW CAN YOU BE SO DENSE?' It was massively foreshadowed in the previous episode! Josh's excitement at being invited to Finn's house and trying to persuade him not to reschedule to a time when his parents would be home! Josh glancing over at Finn during the sex education lesson and quickly looking away when Finn looked back! Josh's little smile when Finn called him a 'good-looking guy'! The scene where Josh maintained eye contact with Finn all the way through kissing Lauren with a song called 'Cheat on Me' playing in the background seriously how did you not get that.
But, of course, I've learnt to notice these things through being in LJ fandom, through being a 'shipper. When I first began reading the Harry Potter books and the concept of 'shipping was an alien one to me, the Hermione/Ron implications went entirely over my head, although I do remember inexplicably suspecting that there was something going on between, erm, Hermione and Hagrid.
I suppose I'm slightly resentful because the Josh/Finn storyline contains all these wonderful implications before Josh's crush becomes explicit, but Waterloo Road fans failed to notice it. BUILDUP IS WASTED ON YOU, WATERLOO ROAD FORA. Jack/Ianto in Torchwood annoyed me because it came literally out of nowhere, but it's a tremendously popular pairing (nothing against its 'shippers, who will have their own interpretation of it, but I wasn't a fan of it as it was portrayed in canon); meanwhile, here's a canonical m/m pairing with unrequitedness and self-denial and previously implied attraction and all the other things I love in fiction, and yet nobody is 'shipping it because its fandom is of a different sort. Blast.
why can't I stop thinking about Josh/Finn I'm not even a Waterloo Road fan NO RIONA YOU CAN'T WRITE INTROSPECTIVE JOSH FANFICTION STOP IT
I don't really write unrequited love much, do I? Perhaps I should, because I certainly enjoy reading or watching it. Something I've always suspected but had confirmed with Will/Emma in Glee is that, no matter how much I may 'ship a pairing, I shall lose all interest the moment the characters get together in canon. Unrequited love (Josh/Finn) is great! Requited love that can never be acknowledged because of the circumstances (Arthur/Guinevere) or because one character has issues with it (Patrick Jane/anyone) is great! But the moment at which UST stops being U is the moment at which I stop being interested. Even if problems then crop up to drive the characters apart again, I can never quite 'ship it with the same intensity. It's a shame.
