m/f romances in popular media are a dime a dozen while strong m/f friendship is incredibly rare, so when something that looked like a strong m/f friendship came along on a show I liked, it was annoying to see everyone wanting to turn it into the 153865928370239857th romance.
*nods* I can see that, because I've been irritated by pointless het shoe-horned into many a telvision or movie plot just for the sake of having a female love interest, and I've made that argument myself about Tony/Pepper, though if I'm being honest my real objection to that ship is a combination of "but you're ignoring comics canon; they never get together and Pepper loves Happy" and die-hard shipper hatred for all things that conflict with my OTP (I stay far away from Iron Man movie-verse fandom for a reason - if I didn't, I'd become the Steve/Tony-shipping version of the troll several of us here are ranting about).
My simmering rage whenever I hear the "why can't they just be friends" argument directed at slash pairings has a similar root - if I/we didn't turn friendships into romance, then there would be no same-sex romances for slashers to root for. Plus, all of my OTPs are canon for me, both slash and het. If you presented me with the "The insistence that A and B should have sex implies a belief that their current relationship is lesser or inferior" argument, my answer, for every one of my OTPs, would be "but based on X, Y, and Z pieces of canon, I believe that they already are romantically in love. I'm not changing their relationship, I'm just having them consumate it."
Plus, when it all comes down to it, though I do love and enjoy gen, and will defend the "gen means no pairings at all" definition to all and sundry, at the end of the day, romance speaks to me on a deeper and more visceral level. It's more intense, for one thing.
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*nods* I can see that, because I've been irritated by pointless het shoe-horned into many a telvision or movie plot just for the sake of having a female love interest, and I've made that argument myself about Tony/Pepper, though if I'm being honest my real objection to that ship is a combination of "but you're ignoring comics canon; they never get together and Pepper loves Happy" and die-hard shipper hatred for all things that conflict with my OTP (I stay far away from Iron Man movie-verse fandom for a reason - if I didn't, I'd become the Steve/Tony-shipping version of the troll several of us here are ranting about).
My simmering rage whenever I hear the "why can't they just be friends" argument directed at slash pairings has a similar root - if I/we didn't turn friendships into romance, then there would be no same-sex romances for slashers to root for. Plus, all of my OTPs are canon for me, both slash and het. If you presented me with the "The insistence that A and B should have sex implies a belief that their current relationship is lesser or inferior" argument, my answer, for every one of my OTPs, would be "but based on X, Y, and Z pieces of canon, I believe that they already are romantically in love. I'm not changing their relationship, I'm just having them consumate it."
Plus, when it all comes down to it, though I do love and enjoy gen, and will defend the "gen means no pairings at all" definition to all and sundry, at the end of the day, romance speaks to me on a deeper and more visceral level. It's more intense, for one thing.