I love fall.

Just saw a movie trailer that made me joyous, gave me something to look forward to later this year (thank you Matthew Vaughn!). Say what you will about action movie sequels (sorry, Sandra Bullock), but I'm nevertheless glad to see this, for Colin Firth is my happy thought.

Brings up something I've been considering for a bit. There's this old stereotype that holds a man and a woman can't be 'just friends.' Used to be if two people of the opposite sex got close on-screen, there was somewhere an automatic supposition of 'he/she's hittin' that.' Now that same-sex relationships are more widely accepted, it's as if any two people who get close fall under that assumption.

This is something I see quite often in fanfiction. Some years ago (not long after S1E3, if I remember correctly), I read a Sherlock fic where the author had chosen to make Sherlock and John's relationship that of good friends and roommates, much like the show portrays them. (Don't you 'of course dear' hand-pat me.) Another author in the same fandom wrote a fic that made them into lovers. I found both quite enjoyable, well-written and -researched and richly detailed in sensation and emotion (and, as always, the crime-solving inherent in anything Sherlock Holmes). But with so many other authors putting Sherlock and John together in a romance rather than a bromance, the first author I mentioned changed the relationship in the sequel of her story to go with the crowd.

I see the same thing in Kingsman fiction. (There. I said it. Kingsman. HE'S ALIVE!!!!) Colin Firth. Is. Hot. Taron Egerton is adorable. I do not blame anyone for fantasizing. (Keep doing it. It occasionally makes for great reading material. And there's this one fanart - I digress.) But I don't see anything in the movie suggesting that the characters these actors play have any relationship beyond that of mentor and student - I'm more likely to find a Merlin/Eggsy fic more 'realistic' in terms of being supported by events in the movie.

In the case of Kingsman fiction, I see these fan authors' changes to the characters' relationship as based on limited information. As Arthur Conan Doyle once wrote, "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." It's a reason I'm annoyed at the infamous-in-the-fandom deleted scene, said to have been removed because the director assumed that the fans would assume that the characters were 'hitting that.' Fans would have made their assumptions whether the scene was left in or not, and I think deleting the scene made the supposition more intense instead of lessening it.

I've seen this sort of change in the relationships between characters on other shows, and with few exceptions, I've seen those stories deteriorate to the point of character removal (the show kills off the character or moves him/her on to bigger and better things) or series finale. It's one part of why I say rubbish, filth, slime, muck, boo trends - if they make someone change something that is already good, make them any less of what they are, just for the sake of fitting in, then I reject them.

Ah, trailers, how you tease with your limited data - any further theorizing will have to wait until fall.