Re: The Great Ship Debate
I think we're getting mixed up here between acknowledging that the show has geared two characters towards a relationship... and actually liking said ship. The former
does not imply the latter. Nor should it.
For example, GSR? Is canon. There is just no ands, ifs, or buts about it. However, everybody in the world is free to either love it or hate it. If GSR makes you want to puke, and you spend your days writing Sandles or Snickers fanfiction and wistfully daydreaming how good they would have been together... hey, why not, especially if it makes the show more enjoyable for you? That doesn't make a person stupid, or pigheaded, or blind, or any of the other insults that often get unjustly hurled at shippers.
I'm a GSR-defender to the core. I think the characters work, the actors have chemistry, and that the show has done a good job at hinting at a love story between the various and sundry bits and pieces that have appeared in the last seven seasons without miring us all down in relationship drama. I think a person would have to be seriously fooling themselves to say that GSR is not canon at all, or that the show is fooling us, or that Grissom or Sara secretly hate the other one and are really yearning to be with Insert-Your-Character-Here. But the thing is, you can acknowledge that GSR is canon and still hate it. I think that's what
twins is getting at, if I'm not mistaken (and forgive me for putting words in your mouth, if I'm wrong). The poster is not speaking about those who acknowledge that GSR or Yo!Bling might have canon relationship moments, but still hate the ships and prefer their own because it makes more sense to them. I think the poster is talking about people who, even after all this time, argue that there
really is no canon for those ships... that people who acknowledge them as canon are somehow deluded. It's hard to argue
against "Butterflied" being about GSR, or that Catherine and Warrick nearly kissed in "Down the Drain"... but that doesn't stop some people from trying. Hell, there are posters on the boards who are even now desperately twisting Grissom's words from last episode around so that they can claim that he really doesn't love Sara at all.
It's that kind of behavior that
twins abhors, I think... and I agree. You can hate GSR all you want; you can burn Sara and Grissom in effigy, for all I care. It's your perspective, and you're entitled to it, and if you can argue your case intelligently using canon to support your argument, I might even concede that you have a point. (I've got a soft spot for Sandle, for instance.)
But when you try to argue that "Butterflied" was really about Grissom's feelings for another female character, or that the near-kiss between Catherine and Warrick means nothing (and I'm not even into that ship at all), then you lose me. That crosses the line from seeing the wonderful possibilities of other ships and championing storylines that you might have preferred to the canon ones, to willfully deluding yourself as to the events that have actually happened on screen and have vocally been supported by the cast and crew of the show. And I'm just not down with that.
As for The Love... sorry, but I'm still not sold yet. I understand the points you're making,
twins, and you may be right - I'm open to it. However, for myself, I think I'd have to see something a bit more substantial onscreen before I get on board.
And for the record, slash never did made sense to me before - why ship two same-sex characters that are canonically hetero? (I mean
canonically hetero, as in actively shown on screen to be hetero - not a prevailing heterocentric attitude that all characters must be straight until proven gay.) Then I watched
Smallville... and I saw the light. Clark and Lex? Are the Godiva of slash.
So I can totally understand slash shipping now, regardless of orientation. However, while I might enjoy the possibility of Nick and Greg (and I do, definitely more so than before), the hetero characterization I've seen from them is still too strong for me to accept their pairing as canon, despite the good arguments that have been made here. However, I'm enjoying the points everyone is making, and my mind's not set in stone. Y'all can keep trying.