katallison | The Creation of Plausible Fanon

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The Creation of Plausible Fanon

kelliem posted a rant in her LJ today expressing her frustration with a bit of fanon she sees creeping into ever more dS stories--namely, RayK as a smoker. I started to reply in her comments, realized I was getting long, and decided to post this here. I hope it goes without saying that I'm writing this not to argue with Kellie, whom I greatly like and respect, or to disparage her rights to her beliefs and opinions. But her entry gave me occasion to think about

For starters, I'm pretty neutral on this particular topic--I've never written RayK smoking, but it's not one of those things that in and of itself bothers me particularly. However, I find it hard to resist playing devil's advocate by saying that I can't really see how the argument "RayK does not smoke, damn it!" differs essentially from the argument of anti-slashers: "RayK (or whoever) is not gay, damn it! It's a distortion of the character to write him doing something we never see him doing in the show and are given no reason to think he would do!"

As slashers, we've developed several lines of response to this, which are familiar enough to those reading this not to need recapitulation, I trust. But we need to not lose sight of the fact that ultimately slash is fanon, at least for any characters who aren't canonically shown as being gay or bisexual. It's a fanon with which those of us who read/write slash are very comfortable, but it's useful to keep in mind that it is always an extrapolation from sub-(sometimes *deeply* sub-)textual elements of canon--whiffs of body language, inflection, gazes, or maybe actor variables (chemistry, attractiveness)--and it's an extrapolation that many non-slasher fans would vehemently contest.

Hang around slashdom long enough, and it's easy to simply assume that *of course* RayK is in love with Fraser, in every sense, of course he's sexually attracted to him, of course it's a romance that will eventually be consummated, because that's what we read and write, over and over. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that, when we look at canon with the slash-colored lenses off, we see that RayK is someone whose romantic/sexual life has been defined by his consuming passion for a woman, Stella, that all of his canonically visible attempts to get past that relationship and move on involve fumbling approaches to other women. I really don't have any way to *argue* with people who say "RayK is not gay, dammit!", except by pointing to--intangibles, the way he looks at Fraser, their body language together, the kind of trust and rapport they seem to develop, the way they *vibe* together. It's easy for me to imagine that segueing into a sexual relationship, but in order to do that, I really have to move outside of canon.

Further, in reading Fraser/RayK, I'm happiest when the writer makes some effort to situate that relationship in some context of Ray's previous concepts of his own sexuality (which we have no reason to think are anything other than the conventional ones that would be held by a blue-collar long-time-married Chicago cop). I want to see a case being made, a connection between the uniformly het guy we see in the show and the getting-it-on-with-a-guy guy we read and write in slash.

So, getting back to the smoking thing--it seems to me plausible fanon, and I base that on the same kind of subtexual cues: body language (the jitteriness, the toothpick); Ray's thing for Steve McQueen; his fondness for a particular set of masculinity-signifiers (leather jackets, muscle car, motorcycle boots, boxing) that often go with smoking; the fact that he doesn't seem like a guy who's deeply concerned with his physical health; and, yeah, the same actor variables that sometimes creep into our willingness to see slashiness. And just as with the slashiness, I am by far happiest when a writer makes some effort to situate it, perhaps to indicate why we don't see him smoking in the show (my favorite take, fwiw, is that he quit when he took on the undercover role of non-smoking RayV [because man, the guy so often looks like someone who's jonesin'], and that he maybe sneaks cigs on the sly). But a sudden incursion of Smoking!Ray is not going to throw me out of an otherwise well-written story, any more than a sudden incursion of GayNow!Ray leaping into sex with Fraser is going to throw me out of a ditto. In each case, the plausibility of the fanon thus enacted doesn't come from adherence to canon per se, but from how a writer makes the non-canonical behavior plausible for these particular characters in this particular situation.

None of this is to disrespect the feelings of those who fervently believe that RayK does not smoke, dammit, exclamation mark. All I'm saying is that while we can certainly like or dislike, agree or disagree with, various bits of fanon, if we're going to *judge* them, we have to do so on the basis of plausible character extrapolation, not canonical evidence. Because otherwise? As slashers, we really don't leave ourselves much ground to stand on.

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Thank you. I was trying to think of a way to say this, but you were eminently more sensible and reasoned about it.

That's an excellent (and well written) counter-argument, but...

:::Beth clutches desperately for a ~~cigarette~~ straw:::

It's a *very* rare dS story that doesn't acknowledge Ray's past/current relationships with women or that his romantic/sexual interest in Fraser is something which should be thought about or talked about or something'ed about, one way or another. On the other hand, it's a very rare Cigarette-Smokin'!Ray story that has even a whisper of explanation for why the character never, ever, ever smokes on the show.

Exactly. I can buy Ray having quit smoking to play Ray V, although it's not my favorite thing to read, but it's the stories that just seem to take it for granted that he not only smokes, he smokes *all the time* and spends the rare moments he's not smoking wishing for a cigarette, with absolutely no attempt to explain why or how this is happening, that really drive me nuts.

*nod* I totally get that the no-explanation thing bugs, and I know that smoking is a big red-button issue for many people, for excellent reasons. In writing this, I was trying to think of random fanonical things that bug me as much, and what I kept coming back to (doubtless because my brain is still foggy and full of cold germs and phlegm) is the thing I kept running across back in my XF days, in Mulder-Scully stories, where they were for no apparent reason required to attend the Annual FBI Formal-Dress Ball. Dude, you would not *believe* how many FBI Ball stories there are out there, all of which basically left me going "...the HELL?"

Which isn't even slightly relevant to the whole conversation, and so I abandon it forthwith, and go off to blow my nose and cough some more. *g* But thanks for commenting.

My god, I'd forgotten *all about* the myriad FBI Dress Ball stories there used to be in XF. (Forgotten -- or blocked out.) There were a lot of loopy standard fanon tropes in that fandom, but the FBI Dress Ball thing was straight-out hilarious, especially when you had people trying to argue that the FBI doesn't *have* a Dress Ball (or, for that matter, any rules about partners having it off with each other).

O, XF Fandom, no one can ever be a batshit insane as *you*. :)

I have never heard of the FBI Formal Dress Ball fanon, but I can certainly understand why that would make you go, "...the HELL?" Because, yeah, WTF?

I'm sorry you're still sick--hope you feel better soon!

*smootch*

I was trying to think of random fanonical things that bug me as much

For what it's worth, the random fanonical thing that bugs me even more than smoking is Ray-the-alcoholic. But then, alcoholism isn't a lot more popular than smoking.

Mulder-Scully stories, where they were for no apparent reason required to attend the Annual FBI Formal-Dress Ball

But ... not only were they mysteriously required by Skinner to attend the annual FBI formal-dress ball, but the agents *weren't allowed to bring dates*. Everyone came stag or (in some cases) with their partner (who wore, depending on who wrote the story, a slinky green dress or a green velvet dress). "Why Scully! You're beautiful!"

And then all the agents would fight over who got to dance with her and smell her strawberry-scented hair.

Of course, I've hardly read any of those stories. This is just what I've heard. *G*

Damn, I need an XF icon. :) I'm all nostalgic.

Oh my gawd, flashbacks, I'm having the bad flashbacks...
::flailing, snivelling piteously::

Strawberry-scented hair. Lord, how could I have forgotten that one?

I've read stories that have RayK as someone who smokes an occasional cigarette and it hasn't bothered me, and as others have said I can definitely see him as a former smoker.

Also, there is canon to suggest that he wouldn't smoke, i.e., the fact that Ray Vecchio is a fairly rabid anti-smoker. There are several episodes in season one and two that have him being more than a little vocal in his displeasure with someone smoking around him so it would be pretty odd for him to suddenly start smoking like a chimney.

No strong views on whether RayK smokes or not, but:

On the other hand, it's a very rare Cigarette-Smokin'!Ray story that has even a whisper of explanation for why the character never, ever, ever smokes on the show.

I chalk this up to the automatic mental correction we all have between what's really real, and what's 'just television'. In fanfic the characters swear much more then they could ever do on the show, and I've never heard anyone say 'they wouldn't because they didn't on the show' (objections are more likely to run along the lines of what is acceptable for a *writer* to put in). In the pilot I can easily tell which bits are Paul Gross and which bits are the stuntman, but I don't have to justify why his hair suddenly looks different mid-leap onto moving vehicle. I do an automatic mental adjust 'oh, but it's *supposed* to be Fraser'.

In translating the universe from a visual medium to a prose one this becomes an issue of realism in storytelling. And the weird thing is that it's easier to generate realism with pixels on a screen than with television magic. Cardboard sets become 'real' places, stage make-up become real torn flesh and flowing blood and if you're self-publishing on the web you can say fuck as often as you like.

I get the impression that for some people the mental adjust extends to smoking: It seems plausible enough, and the only reason it wasn't on the screen (besides the discouragement of smoking on tv, see discussion below) is that cigarettes are a *bitch* to maintain continuity around. Too fiddly, and thus expensive, to shoot. *g*

*kneels down and whole-fucking-heartedly proposes marriage to you*

To Kat - You said everything I wanted to say, only did it much better than I ever could. Thank you.

To brooklinegirl - Hor.

dude. you're already married. I CAN'T propose marriage to you. That would be, like, wrong, and immoral.

Sadly, all I can do is have clandestine sex with you.

*tugs you into my bed*

Hey! There's clandestine sex going on in my LJ, and I'm not invited! ::sulks::

Well, presumably the proposals of marriage include conjugal rights... but I suppose that's still not especially clandestine.

::pets you::

Uhm. "Clandestine" is the same as "whorey," right?

*tugs Kat Allison into the bed*

(hey! lesbianorgy! again!)

::glomps everybody equally, not waiting for an invitation::

... wow. I'm off to nap and have no THOUGHTS, other than, yes, right, absolutely.

It's the "slash is fanon" thing which is pinging more than anything else, because, honestly, the stuff about smoking (and why Ray K maybe doesn't where we can see him) is all stuff I would've posted if I'd seen the original rant. But... yeah.

Hell.

Fanon. "First generation" fanon, which gets all the cachet of being, to some extent, an 'honest' reading of the canon by a thoughtful individual with which one can have room to honestly disagree, and yet... Fanon just the same.

And I need to think about this in terms of some of the big, PotC-focused fanon arguments I was playing around with

mimesere recently. Hmmm.

Doesn't really change my MIND -- "nothing wrong with fanon, but basing a story on fanon rather than canon is oft problematic, at best" -- but... yeah. *thoughts*

Like that aged trope about how the clone turned out fine, but the clone of the clone of the clone... didn't. *hand-wave*

Yeah, there's the whole degrees-of-separation thing ... which I'd say more about if I had more functioning brain.

And I'd *love* to hear more about the PotC fanon convos with

mimesere sometime.

I strongly suspect that if I were in DS fandom, what would bother me would not be the handful of 'first generation' fanoneers who looked at the text and at least made a thoughtful and defensible extrapolation of a fact that is not actually in evidence of the text. It would be all the second-, third-, etc.-generation writers mindlessly repeating the idea because it sounds cool, someone else used it sexily, or they don't even know the canon well enough to know that it's *not* canon.

But, then, it would be pointless for me to deny that my fanfic Issue of Discontent for the past six months or so has been its derivativeness--not from the source, not even from other sources (I wish!), but from other fanfic. On particularly grouchy days it seems to me that you could eliminate half of any given mid-to-large size fandom's fanfic and lose nothing, not because of the quality of writing per se, but because the writers brought absolutely nothing new of any kind to the table, not character analysis, not plot, not humor, not style, not mood. If you expanded the universe of comparison to include fanfic from other fandoms, probably the percentage would rise to 70% or so.

It would be all the second-, third-, etc.-generation writers mindlessly repeating the idea because it sounds cool, someone else used it sexily, or they don't even know the canon well enough to know that it's *not* canon.

God, I can totally understand why this would bother you (and perhaps does, in the fandom[s] in which you write). Mindless repetition bothers me, too.

At the same time, though, I feel a little uncomfortable with this. Because I am a second-, third, or perhaps tenth-generation dS fanfic writer - and there is nothing whatsoever I can do about that. It's a chronological accident that I got there late - later than the first-generation folks, at least - and at this point it's entirely beyond my control. Moreover, I came to dS through fanfic - again, not something I can do anything about, and furthermore not, I think, something I'd change if I could, because damn, I have read some wonderful, wonderful stuff along with all the incredibly brain-damaged, ungrammatical, ill-written crap the world of dS fandom has to offer, whereas I distinctly remember seeing an early promo for dS and thinking "Huh - a Mountie? in Chicago? Ah, probably not for me" and going off to, I don't know, polish my andirons or something. So I'd never have gotten to dS at all if it hadn't been for the fic - and, more pertinently, for the writers thereof.

So what is a [nth]-generation arrival to the world of, say, dS to do when attacked by a plot bunny in the dead of night? Beat the bunny off with a stick because she hasn't actually seen any episodes of the show (mostly because, at the time the bunny bites, the show has been off the air for five and a half years and she doesn't actually know that such things as .rar files and VCDs even exist)? Write it anyway and then stick it in the electronic equivalent of a desk drawer until she's had a chance to read every bit of dS fic out there to make sure someone else didn't get there first and better? Is the idea that, even though non-RPS fanfic by definition involves writing fiction about fictional characters, one is not actually entitled to write such fiction about such characters until one has first learned everything there is to know about them according to the original creators thereof?

I think there are two separate problems there, and I'm more sympathetic to one than to the other.

(1) Not having seen any canon and wanting to write anyway. In that situation, the writer is absolutely not saying anything about the original text (because the writer hasn't experienced it), the writer is *only* responding to fic. I tend to find this deeply uninteresting and see no reason to cut such a writer any slack for being repetitive when the writer is not even trying to engage with the original text. I feel that a writer trying to learn the source is not merely piling up facts, with anyone who piles up the same facts being ready to write well; she's engaging with stories, and a universe, and one can't properly do that second-hand. If the writer doesn't engage with the text, then I have no sympathy if she has nothing to say about it.

(2) Coming late to a fandom and not being deeply versed in the fanfic, so appearing to repeat ideas that the writer just doesn't (yet) know are well-covered in fandom; or coming to a fandom even earlier, before years of stories pile up, and not wanting to be "contaminated" by other people's interpretations before the writer gets her own ideas firmed up, so avoiding reading other stories. I can't really criticize the behavior of the writer in either case; it's her personal choice in approaching her audience, assuming the risk of appearing repetitive (and therefore not having the impact she wants) because she doesn't want to read 1,000 stories first or doesn't want to be "contaminated."

Honestly, though, an intelligent viewer in that scenario should still be able to contribute something. She may not be able to invent a take on the OTP's dynamic that is both reasonable and not already been repeatedly done by a fandom's later years, but that's not what I'm talking about. She may have an intriguing plot idea, or a good twist on an old idea. She may see humor in the scenario that others haven't brought out. She may have a distinctive style, or use mood in different ways. (I came to Buffy fandom in S4 and I didn't really have any problem generating stories which, whatever their quality might have been, weren't particularly derivative of other folks' ideas, but obviously that's easier in a live fandom.)

I don't think most people who end up writing pointlessly derivative fic actually fall into either of my category (2) examples, though. I think most people who do this just don't have anything in particular (artistically, and in connection with *that* fandom) to say and don't realize that they really should.

And since this is somewhat off-topic from the original post, that's all I'm going to say.

The post where I go into it -- and link to Sheila's -- is here. *g*

And, yeah, I still agree with everything I said there, but your post most assuredly gives me pause. I think I've done a good job, over the years, of staying in touch with the fact that canon has either given me characters who were 'supposed' to be straight, or who were never allowed to have the fullness of their gayitude exposed for the masses by their writers.

Either way, it lets me have *some* degree of sangfroid (and, like *reality*-check) when they hook one of my slash toys up with someone who is INCORRECT FOR THEM. (Of course, for me, piggybacking on my response to

glossing below, the incorrectness is often at least as much to do with personality than it does with gender -- and usually has WAY more to do with my sense of 'freedom' as a fan-writer than with anything else.)

Just the same... I've moved to a fandom which has more homoerotic/non-normative/just plain WEIRD subtext than I ever thought *possible*, where it's often harder to read relationships as *platonic* than it is to read them as sexual, where, for the love of all that's holy, there are BIRTHDAY spankings and crossdressing-for-justice and people who wake up as the opposite gender ALL THE TIME and -- *breathes*

Anyway, yeah. Your post provided, for me, a very necessary moment of "step back, think. Would you rather have new writers pick up on your pure fanon construction that Tim has a taste for cheap candy, or pick up on your well-constructed first-generation fanon that [character A] is ever-so-queer for [character B] without doing the narrative work you did? Neither? Unless it's a really good story? Okay, great! Back to the porn mines."

Okay, a lot of what you're saying makes perfect sense. But I do think a lot more writers make the effort to accept and work with Ray's romantic past than do with the smoking issue. And I do think a lot of it is just because people think Callum looks hot with a cigarette dangling from his lips and for that reason only. And that frustrates me (I went and made an addendum to my original post about this, kinda). But you're right that it's no more canon than the boys being hot for each other is.

I see the difference between "he isn't gay/bi in canon" and "he doesn't smoke in canon" as this: if he did smoke in canon, there would be no reason not to show it on screen. The idea that he quit to go undercover is a good one, but if that were the case, they could easily refer to it. If anything, that would strengthen the whole "undercover" scenario.

if he did smoke in canon, there would be no reason not to show it on screen

Well, except for the Iron Law of Modern Television, namely: Thou shalt never show any good character smoking. I mean, really, a cigarette has pretty much replaced the black hat and sinister sneer as universal villian coding, and would be about as unthinkable for one of the heroes as indulging in Teh Gay Sex.

But your point is well-taken, and, as I said, it's one reason I don't myself write him smoking.

This was actually a point I was going to raise, so don't mind me as I hop into the middle of this sub-thread =)

One of the things that I think people forget with the "We haven't seen them be gay, therefore they aren't gay" argument is the fact that there is huge amounts of pressure not to show homosexuality, both in our society and in our pop culture. In real life, people live in the closet for a reason and on TV there aren't many "out" characters for a reason. Even on shows like Angel where the creator of the show is more than fine with homosexuality, gay comments about any of the male characters are restricted to jokes and innuendo, because the majority of people wouldn't be able to cope with it if it was real (and the suits in the network certainly couldn't).

So negative proof of homosexuality doesn't equal positive proof of being straight because we don't know if we're not seeing it because it's not there to see, or because we aren't allowed to see it.

Bringing this over to the point of smoking, there actually is a HUGE pressure to get cigarettes out of our pop culture. I know movies have had a lot put on them to never have characters smoking cigarettes (the controversy over Bond, anyone?). TV is the same. Showing characters smoking is considered to legitimize and encourage the habit, if not flat-out act as advertising for various cigarette brands (the latter of which, on TV, is illegal).

So in much the same way that characters can't be gay even if the creator of the show wanted them to, characters might not be able to smoke under the exact same circumstances.

Just my rambling thoughts on the subject.

Pardon me while I jump into the middle of this one too. *g*

So negative proof of homosexuality doesn't equal positive proof of being straight because we don't know if we're not seeing it because it's not there to see, or because we aren't allowed to see it.

What always bothers me about this argument (and by extension the argument about RayK not being a smoker) is the implication that homosexuality has to be there on the show in some way in order for slash to be valid. Camouflaged, subtextual, hidden, whatever; the suggestion, when people argue and point out the details in the show that support slash, is that you have to somehow *prove* that RayK and/or Fraser could really be gay on the show.

Fiction is all about suspension of disbelief. Like most slash readers/writers, I am wholeheartedly willing to suspend my disbelief and accept that two heterosexual characters from TV/movie/wherever might find the big gay love. I don't need to have it proved to me that they actually are gay in the canon in order to enjoy such a story.

All I really need is otherwise solid characterization that convinces me the two people finding the big gay love are really those people from the show. And that goes also for RayK smoking, or Fraser having a secret stash of Twinkies, or any of a thousand other things that someone could argue there is no evidence for, or even evidence *against*, in the show. Convince me through dialogue and action and narrative that those are the guys, and I'm with you no matter what you do with them -- turn them into smokers, rodeo clowns, angry llamas on Mars, whatever.

Oh yeah. I'm not saying it has to be proven. I'm just saying that that's my argument to people who seem to believe that if there's no evidence of homosexuality, it's therefore entirely in somebody's head to suggest that a character might be gay.

I hardly watch TV except for QAF and slash canon re-runs, but I'm sure you're right.

It would be interesting to know whether that's mostly driven by political-correctness, or whether society has changed enough that your average person actually doesn't expect a "good" character to be a smoker. (No offence to you or any other commenters meant here!) There are very, very few smokers in my whole circle of RL acquaintances, including ex-colleagues from my past jobs in a wide range of industries, people I went to university with, my current clients and friends, and the local slashers' group. It's really pretty uncommon for people here, especially people with a post-secondary school eduction, to smoke.

Thank you for explaining why this whole thing bugged me. Because...we're making all this shit up. Let's not get too heavy on who would and wouldn't do what, as long as it makes some kind of sense. I'd much rather read smoking!Ray than a Ray who microwaves puppies or (this is REALLY scary!) decides he doesn't want to screw Fraser. So. Everybody has their own little Ray in their brain, and isn't it fun that we can all take him out and play wid him however we like? :)

Reminding ourselves of just this is an excellent reality check, indeed! I think the crux of the whole situation is that people get WAY passionate about things they love. And they bring their own issues/likes/dislikes into a story when they read it, so no two people are going to react the same way, and Hey! isn't that really really cool?

It reminds me of a discussion I was having with someone about The DaVinci Code. They were getting all hot and bothered about how Jesus DID NOT have sex and dammit, people shouldn't start rumors like that. And I'm all, Hey, it's a fucking piece of fiction, dude. Lighten up. :)

There are plenty more things to worry about and get your panties in a wad over that hold a little bit more importance...at least to me.

Hang around slashdom long enough, and it's easy to simply assume that *of course* RayK is in love with Fraser, in every sense, of course he's sexually attracted to him, of course it's a romance that will eventually be consummated, because that's what we read and write, over and over.
What you've written here -- the ease of assumption -- *that's* what I would call fanon: An accretion of assumptions and shortcuts repeated across different texts without much (if any) work/investigation being put into those assumptions.

Slash, however, does not (for me, my opinion, blahblah) equal fanon in this way, particularly if we (I) understand slash as an action that brings together two characters of the same gender, rather than a genre that's about gaying them up.

we need to not lose sight of the fact that ultimately slash is fanon, at least for any characters who aren't canonically shown as being gay or bisexual
This expresses...I don't know. A firmer view of sexual identity, and identity-superseding-practice, than one I'm comfortable espousing. If a male character's shown in love with a woman, I'm still not sure that's proof of a concrete and thoroughgoing heterosexuality, any more than I am that a character shown performing homosexual emotions/actions/etc is thoroughly gay.

I read right past the part of Kat's post which is, I think, niggling at you, and I get it. (Of the huge host of characters I write/have written engaging in any sort of sexual activity at all involving another person, very few of them 'read' to me as either gay, bi, *or* het -- or even some nebulous extrapolation of 'queer.' None of these people are strictly applicable in my world, and they don't really *behave* as if they should be applicable, so why write them thus (all the time))?

However, I think the post pinged rather than niggled because I read it less as a matter of masses of slashers assuming "such and such characters are non-heterosexual in some easily quantifiable way" than of "the non-heterosexuality/non-normative/non-whatever status of these characters is taken as a given by masses of people, despite the lack of positive proof of same."

I think slashers are more likely -- especially with a few years under their belts -- to go with your view of things, which I'm translating to "the fact that this character canonically has sexual relations with only this gender and/or *says* he/she/ze only has sexual relationships with this gender is not proof of anything whatsoever, especially since I can a) point to all sorts of canon things that say/suggest different in some way, or b) have this great story I can tell positing things a different way."

And I'm SO losing my thread.

Essentially, I think that *last* bit is what it is about slash -- in all of its broadening, nebulous glory -- fanonical, as opposed to... *hand-wave*

i'm not sure and i certainly don't wanna speak for kat, but doesn't "slash is fanon" simply mean that the sexual relationship between these two particular characters is not canonical rather than making any statements about their sexual identity?

So, as long as we have no actual indication of their relationship, it is not canon, right? [and i think it's a tad different than the fact that they're not shown in a same-sex relationship makes them not gay/bi, b/c there are valid text-intrinsic reasons why they'd be canonically on the show in the closet while being gay/bi...there is no reason *within* the show, however, that they'd not be with each other when they're shown alone if they were together..just like the smoking, the reasons for that are *outside* the text...do not show gay couples; do not show smokers...]

kat, amazing post!!! (though i'll be haunted by strawberry shampoo now...things we're glad we forgot :-)

It's easy to lose sight of the fact that, when we look at canon with the slash-colored lenses off, we see that RayK is someone whose romantic/sexual life has been defined by his consuming passion for a woman, Stella...

What...oh - no - uh - ::sticks fingers in ears:: La La La La La!

...except by pointing to--intangibles, the way he looks at Fraser, their body language together, the kind of trust and rapport they seem to develop, the way they *vibe* together. It's easy for me to imagine that segueing into a sexual relationship...

La...oh, OK. Thank you.

Huh. This is really smart.

I thought you had a cold! How come you can think so cogently when you have a cold, and I can't even write a cogent comment when I'm 100% healthy? :-)

Dude, just yes.

I am by far happiest when a writer makes some effort to situate it, perhaps to indicate why we don't see him smoking in the show (my favorite take, fwiw, is that he quit when he took on the undercover role of non-smoking RayV [because man, the guy so often looks like someone who's jonesin'], and that he maybe sneaks cigs on the sly)

I've always just assumed RayK is a smoker like me - ie, I don't smoke much. I smoke when I drink and occasionally I'll sit on my balcony with a cup of coffee (no smarties in it though) and a cigarette. But I don't smoke at work, or when driving or most of the time, really.

But I do the jittery thing and chew gum and occasionally toothpicks too. Sadly, I am not, however, Callum Keith Rennie. Well, that's probably a good thing otherwise I'd spend all day naked in front of a mirror ;)

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The Creation of Plausible Fanon

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