Uncrossable Lines

Follow-up to this post on the concept of misaimed fandoms (DW mirror here), which was itself inspired by this post by arachnekallisti on writing terrible human beings/deliberately unsympathetic characters.


I was talking this over with seanchai last weekend, actually as part of a tangent about Torchwood (why some people absolutely cannot like Owen or Gwen for the alien sex pollen and the retconning-your-significant-other-to-conceal-your-infidelity things while being totally able to forgive Ianto his cyborg girlfriend shenanigans), and one thing that came up is that different readers/viewers have different, and often very personal and non-rational Uncrossable Lines for characters and for shows.

( An Uncrossable Line is something you absolutely cannot forgive a character for, a belief or action that, once expressed or performed by a given character, renders that character completely unsympathetic and unlikable often no matter what reasons/excuses/mitigating factors there are )

Sharing the same fandoms, the same OTPs, the same opinions on canon, and even sharing the same ideological viewpoint, religious or cultural background, and political/social opinions, does not guarantee that people will share the same Uncrossable Line, any more than sharing all of the above will guarantee that people will have the same kinks and squicks. It can be the difference between believing that Spike can be redeemed post season six, and wanting to kill him with fire, between seeing Lex Luthor as a woobie and seeing him as an evil supervillain (or seeing him as an evil supervillain who's kick-ass awesome), between being horrified or disgusted by a character and fangirling him (or her).

*I debated whether to use this icon or the broken!woobie!Tony Stark one, but since the original post referenced Watchmen and had an Ozymandias icon....*