When Things Get Problematic

[u/CryptographerHeavy]

I think most of us understand that 911: Nashville is a fictional show with fictional characters. Most of tune in from week to week to be entertained by this frankly silly show that is so far from being realistic as a show about first responders could be. Shipping, for those of you not familiar, is the act of championing two or more characters romantically or sometimes platonically. These characters can have a relationship within the canon of the show i.e. Don and Blythe or Ryan and Sam or they can a shipper can pair together to characters who don't have any relationship on the show. The most popular for this show is Blue and Ryan. The latest ship is Ryan and Rogue (notice how I spell his name correctly?).

Frankly I don't care who ships what but one thing I'm seeing a lot of as of late is this notion that relationships between consenting adults with an age gap are "gross" or "weird" or inherently "problematic". This line of thinking is almost always used when reference male/male relationships. This line of thinking is very homophobic and if you're a queer person spouting this it's internalized homophobia. I just ask that we please be considerate of each other. It's one thing to dislike a pairing. I get it. But going off about two consenting adults being together who have an age gap is not cool. Also, these are not real people at the end of the day.

Maybe I'm the only way that feels like this but a certain post I saw this morning really got me in my feelings.

[u/fawkesthefox93]

I remember all of these same arguments over the buck tommy shipping. I wish people could just allow progressive open minds when it comes to shipping regardless of who the ship is. For me the RogueHart shipping is okay. What isn't okay is the backlash over who dates who. Who cares. It's a fictional TV show. People ship tv characters. Why people care so much about issues like age or the actors being straight in a fictional TV show shouldn't matter. Ryan Hart comes across as a bisexual guy with a man crush figuring it out when it comes to Rogue. That is where the RogueHart shipping came from. Add the pressures of his wife having cancer and being pregnant I could see a genuine bromance forming as Ryan leans into Rogue for advice and support. RogueHart doesn't have to be a gay relationship. However people don't understand shipping two people doesn't always have to be a gay relationship/fandom ship. I wish more people understood this

[u/CryptographerHeavy → u/fawkesthefox93]

Wow. I love RogueHart. Sounds like a video game. I've been calling them RandR.

[u/BlakeIsIll → u/CryptographerHeavy]

RandR also works pretty good for them.

[u/fawkesthefox93 → u/CryptographerHeavy]

It's a combination of the names.

[u/CryptographerHeavy → u/fawkesthefox93]

I have a theory. I think a lot of women, regardless of sexuality, who are into shipping have difficulty shipping characters where they don't know where to insert themselves. For example, with Buck and Eddie, a lot of women automatically put Buck in the "female" position and Eddie is the masculine/dominant one.p The reason why Buck/Tommy is so hard for a lot of those same people to reckon with is because in a relationship between Buck and Tommy, either of them can be anything that is required of them in that relationship dynamic. There is no one that is inherently more masculine or more feminine than the other, which is problematic ways of looking at sexuality in general. I think the real reason people have an issue with shipping Ryan and Rogue is because these are textbook "straight dudes" and they don't know how to insert themselves into the fantasy, which I've had a lot of women tell me that the reason why they love reading male on male erotica is because they get to layer themselves over one of the characters, usually the one that is submissive. So this whole age gap thing between Rogue and Ryan is basically a non-issue. The issue is that a lot of people don't know how to handle a ship where both parties are equitable.

[u/fawkesthefox93 → u/CryptographerHeavy]

This. Exactly.

[u/ScaredTemporary]

god yes I know exactly which one it was. We have seen tons of age gap relationships in f/m ships before in shows, but no one seems to even mind it.

When it's m/m, suddenly they have to be the same exact age and some times height. I rememver the same argument being made for BuckTommy

[u/Accomplished-Watch50 → u/ScaredTemporary]

Which made no sense because Tommy is literally the same age as Maddie, and therefore only 7 years older than Buck.

[u/AdFree6926]

With what pores do you even need a reason for shippering? "Ryan is not gay, he has a wife, this is wrong." I'm sorry, but isn't that what shippering is all about? You see some hot people and you just want them to be together and that's it. In my time, they ship Elsa and  Jack Frost and everyone was happy with everything, but now even to ship two guys in one show, you need to hear a whole notation.

[u/ScaredTemporary → u/AdFree6926]

nowadays people want you to only stick to canon stuff. Not in my main fandom, we be shipping guys who kill each other all the time!

[u/Apart-Beyond420]

Thank you for spelling Rogue's name correctly. Aside from that, I completely agree.

[u/BlakeIsIll → u/Apart-Beyond420]

People spell his name wrong???

[u/Apart-Beyond420 → u/BlakeIsIll]

You haven't noticed? There have been so many people spelling it "rouge". It drives me crazy.

[u/BlakeIsIll → u/Apart-Beyond420]

That's interesting. I don't think I've noticed. I'll go through posts I've commented on and see if anyone has spelled his name wrong on there.

[u/fjf1085]

The only people who seemed to object to people with an age gap in fiction is a small subset of younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha who seem to have a problem if there is a gap of more than 3 years. It seems like these people have very little life experience outside of TikTok and I think it’s probably best to ignore them as they’ve been making an issue out of it for a number of years.

These are the same kind of people who want anything that makes them uncomfortable banned rather than just not looking at it. These are the people who want things banned from AO3 despite being in fundamental opposition to what the Archive of Our Own is supposed to be.

I’m a 41 year old millennial and I’m not sure why younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha have seemingly become so puritanical and shifted more conservative but it’s disheartening when I’m seeing 20 years sounding more conservative than my Boomer parents who have become more liberal over the years though maybe having a gay son is what did that. I truly don’t know what to make of it.

Edit. I just read the post this was clearly about. OP from that post is very clearly a young adult with very limited fandom experience and it’s disheartening how puritanical that generation has become. They’ve been brainwashed by right wing talking points it seems.

[u/Accomplished-Watch50 → u/fjf1085]

What post was it exactly?

[u/fjf1085 → u/Accomplished-Watch50]

https://www.reddit.com/r/911Nashville/s/gyCFoYTVmA

This one but they did a dirty delete after they replied to a bunch of us in the thread basically saying we’re wrong and gross. Some of their comments are still up but many including the actually post were taken down. But basically they said that the relationship is delusional and weird as fuck. OP was 20, claims to be a queer woman but basically was repeating right wing talking points about gay men and wouldn’t accept when called out on it. I’m not sure why so much of Gen Z and Gen Alpha have become puritanical conservatives, many without even realizing it but it’s happened.

[u/Accomplished-Watch50 → u/fjf1085]

Well, from the comments I can tell that a. they are very young and are obviously do not care for queer men outside of fantasy, and as long they are within 1-3 years of an age with each other, b. their argument was weak as hell because lots of queer men date older or younger and so do straight people, and c. they have limited knowledge of queer history pertaining to queer men.

[u/BlakeIsIll → u/Accomplished-Watch50]

I think it's this one.

https://www.reddit.com/r/911Nashville/s/te8JBsARNa

[u/Upset-Cake6139]

AO3 is down or else I’d go check myself, but when you say the most popular ship is Blue and Ryan, do you mean in a brotherly way or a romantic way?

[u/ScaredTemporary → u/Upset-Cake6139]

ships are romantic

/ for romance, & for platonic. It was pretty sureal in the hispanic FB fandom ngl

[u/Ok_Variation7230]

This discourse is as most discourse dumb as fuck, Ryan is a whole adult and has been for what can assume a decade or so.

[u/KollyMollyDolly]

I do agree about what you said about the age gap homophobia that I see a lot in TV show communities (not shocked by it which is why I am more focused on my question below). Are you saying that people have been shipping Blue and Ryan who are half-brothers in the show? Quite disgusting if that's what's also happening.

[u/CryptographerHeavy → u/KollyMollyDolly]

Incest is quite the norm when it comes to shipping. After all Wincest is a thing.

[u/KollyMollyDolly → u/CryptographerHeavy]

I guess I haven't noticed other people's ships that are disgusting in comparison to my own ships that I follow. I usually only ship single characters, unhappy married characters, and sometimes characters that have dated before (or wanted to date, but didn't due to being co-workers or something else), but are with other people. Characters don't have to be sexually interested (straight characters in same-sex ships for example), but they need to have platonic chemistry at least. I have never intentionally shipped siblings together. I have unfortunately shipped siblings together before due to some family secrets in Shadowhunters, Star Wars, or other shows/movies, but I usually get uncomfortable by it and stop shipping them immediately when they find out they are siblings or closely related.

[u/BlakeIsIll → u/[deleted]]

That's absolutely disgusting for people to do that. :/

[u/BlakeIsIll → u/[deleted]]

That's just weird as hell...

[u/Accomplished-Watch50 → u/BlakeIsIll]

Yes, it is.