Road to Avonlea
Jan. 4th, 2025 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kiki_engIn your own space, talk about your fannish origin story. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.
You know what? My fannish origin story is my fervent childhood certainty that Stuart was all wrong for Felicity. I've decided.
I grew up watching Road to Avonlea, which was a Sullivan Films/CBC/Disney/Telefilm Canada production based on the novels of L.M. Montgomery. Red dirt, sea, and poofy sleeves for days.
My family was mildly obsessed. The series finale was a big deal in my house along with the lead-up to it. The lead-up brought on and heavily featured my childhood anxiety that Felicity would marry the wrong man.
Was Stuart fine? Probably not. Not many men are. But did I make up the part about him giving Felicity the house that he'd built, imagining raising their children therein, when she broke off their engagement? Like, that's a really nice gift. It was a really nice house. She did, in fact, keep it. (A house!)
BUT STUART WAS ALL WRONG FOR FELICITY.
Because he was not, and this is critical, Gus.
Gus lived in a light house, for years, Gus lived in a light house and excuse me I have just found out that Michael Mahonen was twenty-six years old when he was cast as Gus Pike, which means he is in fact still too old for me. I could have sworn Gus Pike was, like, fifteen, maybe seventeen at the start of the series and this has been a shock. (Why did I genuinely think that a twenty-six year old man was a child? Was it because I had no concept of age? Did he somehow look fifteen at that age? How?) Anyway Wikipedia describes him as a vagabond and a sailor with a Maritimer accent and, y'know, sometimes you just want a vagabond sailor with a Maritimer accent. He and Felicity have a slow burn romance. The slowest burn.
I think this is maybe what has ruined all television series for me. Like, do I want the lead to find love? Yes, absolutely, but if it isn't a six season long voyage with her/their end game love interest being a minor character in every season, then: what is this dross that you're presenting me with?
(Spoilers: she ends up with Gus.)
He's a sailor, he goes to sea, he becomes blind, he needs therapy. He probably doesn't get therapy but in the final episodes Felicity tracks him down - she goes on a sea voyage and tracks him down because they are in love and he's been assumed dead but she gets a lead and she is gone, she is leaving Stuart and finding Gus and yelling at him and dragging his ass back home to marry him. Were they engaged before this? Probably, but I don't actually remember.
Anyway, they get married. Possibly Hetty gives him away? I am very sketchy on the details here. Maybe Felicity goes to yell at Hetty about not missing her wedding? Hetty is there and it's good.
AND THEN THEY GO FILL THE HOUSE THAT STUART GAVE FELICITY WITH ORPHANS. Because Gus is an orphan, and I'm not crying. No one's crying. There are no tears. The emotional manipulation is too heavy-handed, probably. THE END.
Anyway, that scene with Stuart showing Felicity a beautiful house in a sun-drenched clearing covered with flowers lives in my head alongside this memory of my childhood self being absolutely furious that the story was going in this direction. Road to Avonlea is my earliest memory of that kind of deep emotional investment in a narrative.
You know what? My fannish origin story is my fervent childhood certainty that Stuart was all wrong for Felicity. I've decided.
I grew up watching Road to Avonlea, which was a Sullivan Films/CBC/Disney/Telefilm Canada production based on the novels of L.M. Montgomery. Red dirt, sea, and poofy sleeves for days.
My family was mildly obsessed. The series finale was a big deal in my house along with the lead-up to it. The lead-up brought on and heavily featured my childhood anxiety that Felicity would marry the wrong man.
Was Stuart fine? Probably not. Not many men are. But did I make up the part about him giving Felicity the house that he'd built, imagining raising their children therein, when she broke off their engagement? Like, that's a really nice gift. It was a really nice house. She did, in fact, keep it. (A house!)
BUT STUART WAS ALL WRONG FOR FELICITY.
Because he was not, and this is critical, Gus.
Gus lived in a light house, for years, Gus lived in a light house and excuse me I have just found out that Michael Mahonen was twenty-six years old when he was cast as Gus Pike, which means he is in fact still too old for me. I could have sworn Gus Pike was, like, fifteen, maybe seventeen at the start of the series and this has been a shock. (Why did I genuinely think that a twenty-six year old man was a child? Was it because I had no concept of age? Did he somehow look fifteen at that age? How?) Anyway Wikipedia describes him as a vagabond and a sailor with a Maritimer accent and, y'know, sometimes you just want a vagabond sailor with a Maritimer accent. He and Felicity have a slow burn romance. The slowest burn.
I think this is maybe what has ruined all television series for me. Like, do I want the lead to find love? Yes, absolutely, but if it isn't a six season long voyage with her/their end game love interest being a minor character in every season, then: what is this dross that you're presenting me with?
(Spoilers: she ends up with Gus.)
He's a sailor, he goes to sea, he becomes blind, he needs therapy. He probably doesn't get therapy but in the final episodes Felicity tracks him down - she goes on a sea voyage and tracks him down because they are in love and he's been assumed dead but she gets a lead and she is gone, she is leaving Stuart and finding Gus and yelling at him and dragging his ass back home to marry him. Were they engaged before this? Probably, but I don't actually remember.
Anyway, they get married. Possibly Hetty gives him away? I am very sketchy on the details here. Maybe Felicity goes to yell at Hetty about not missing her wedding? Hetty is there and it's good.
AND THEN THEY GO FILL THE HOUSE THAT STUART GAVE FELICITY WITH ORPHANS. Because Gus is an orphan, and I'm not crying. No one's crying. There are no tears. The emotional manipulation is too heavy-handed, probably. THE END.
Anyway, that scene with Stuart showing Felicity a beautiful house in a sun-drenched clearing covered with flowers lives in my head alongside this memory of my childhood self being absolutely furious that the story was going in this direction. Road to Avonlea is my earliest memory of that kind of deep emotional investment in a narrative.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-05 04:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-05 10:13 pm (UTC)Aw, yeah. One of the things that I love about so many people's fandom origin stories is just how often that is also a story about finding their people. It's pretty great. ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-05 05:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-05 10:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-05 10:54 pm (UTC)Realmente assitir uma série e ver seu personagem favorita ser empurrado para uma pessoa que você sabe que não funciona e o show fez surgir do nada (um secundário qualquer ou coisa do tipo) me parece muito ruim.
Eu também ficaria furiosa por isso tentando mudar o destino deles. Com todas as novelas que já vi não é novidade que tenha me ocorrido diversas vezes. Por essas e outras existe a fanfic *risos*
Eu também sempre gostei bastante das coisas de forma muito intensa, a tv estava ali a um clique de distância, o que me fez parecer às vezes obcecada. Mas valeu a pena, pois hoje sou fã online com outros iguais a mim para papear.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-06 02:20 am (UTC)Realmente assitir uma série e ver seu personagem favorita ser empurrado para uma pessoa que você sabe que não funciona e o show fez surgir do nada (um secundário qualquer ou coisa do tipo) me parece muito ruim.
Eu também ficaria furiosa por isso tentando mudar o destino deles.
I don't know that Stuart would have been a bad choice for Felicity, really. I think that there can be a kind of practicality to choosing security and nice-ness in a partner*, especially for women in a historical context. But Felicity didn't actually need to get married and clearly wasn't over Gus.
It wasn't the worst thing that the show-runners could have done to engineer drama in their final season and they did have Felicity and Gus end up together. It really wasn't the kind of show where they would have actually killed Gus off and had Felicity marry someone else for the finale. But I was a kid, so I was less genre-savvy and also really, really emotionally invested in my Felicity/Gus OTP.
I don't hold a grudge against the Road to Avonlea show-runners for introducing the character of Stuart to be a love interest/conflict point. [I hold a grudge against them for other things! :) ]
*It's been about 30 years and I don't entirely remember Stuart. It's possible I'm giving him more credit than he deserves.
Com todas as novelas que já vi não é novidade que tenha me ocorrido diversas vezes.
I swear soap operas and dramas run on that kind of shit, sometimes. They think, how can we worry this viewer, how can we throw a wrench in their dreams?
When I first started watching Asian dramas I did not know the genre conventions and I had a lot of doomed beta hero ships. The jealousy story arcs still frustrate me. The dramas I watch tend to stick to their original and very well-signaled romantic plan, though. Do your novelas scrap a pairing out of nowhere?
Por essas e outras existe a fanfic *risos*
Absolutely. I think that a work has to be fundamentally flawed or have unrealised potential to have a big fandom, also. The broken and the forgotten bits of a work are so often what inspires.
Eu também sempre gostei bastante das coisas de forma muito intensa, a tv estava ali a um clique de distância, o que me fez parecer às vezes obcecada. Mas valeu a pena, pois hoje sou fã online com outros iguais a mim para papear.
I think that a lot of fannish folk have special interest media when they are children. There were definitely phases of my childhood where I would have been absolutely thrilled to talk to someone about my then-current thing. Having fandoms in common with people is joy. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-06 02:36 am (UTC)As telenovelas brasileiras tendem a ter romances muito fortes com vilões tentando destruir os casais, levando claro a triângulos amorosos. Algumas vezes no entanto é só a representação de um bobo apaixonado que não sabe com quem ficará e terminamos com pessoa A em dúvida se escolhe B ou C. Pior é quando no nada A termina com um D ou só por falta de um bom trabalho no enredo.
Das telenovelas que vi poucas me surpreenderam com seus casais, quase nunca fiquei feliz com seus finais. Algumas vezes é claro eu torcia para ficarem juntos. Os poucos enredos héteros que curto advém desse tipo de mídia.
Inglês também não é a minha língua, então não se preocupe por não saber meu idioma e precisar de tradutor.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-06 03:08 am (UTC)That is a fantastic way of putting it.
There was definitely stuff I read and watched that I didn't care that much about, but there was also stuff where, yeah, ~reading fervently~ is a really good descriptor.
Algumas vezes no entanto é só a representação de um bobo apaixonado que não sabe com quem ficará e terminamos com pessoa A em dúvida se escolhe B ou C. Pior é quando no nada A termina com um D ou só por falta de um bom trabalho no enredo.
That sounds horrific.
Das telenovelas que vi poucas me surpreenderam com seus casais, quase nunca fiquei feliz com seus finais.
I do not think I finish a high percentage of the dramas that I start watching. The central romantic relationship gets too covered in red flags and I run away. (Sometimes, of course, I just get bored.)
Os poucos enredos héteros que curto advém desse tipo de mídia.
What plots do you usually enjoy? From what sort of media?
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-06 03:53 am (UTC)Minha lista de assistidos no IMDb é tão extensa que eu levaria dias para organizar a mesma.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-07 03:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-07 03:51 am (UTC)Mas nem tudo que eu vejo é queer e nem sempre estou buscando versões mais inclusivas. Às vezes elas me acham, ou quando não tem assisto as obras mais desafiadoras e que por vezes subvertem o original ou criam uma nova roupagem.
Eu gosto muito de categorias específicas, tenho diretores, produtores, escritores e até mesmo atores que eu gosto bastante pois estão sempre em determinado nicho que me agrada.
Posso não gostar muito de relacionamentos héteros, mas às vezes os aprecio se bem produzidos é só que como muitas vezes não o são eu me viro mais para os queer. Mas se essa representação também não me agradar eu tento consumir a obra sem ligar para o romance em questão afim de curtir algo da trama que valha.
Eu só gosto de como é intricado as linhas que unem obras originais e aquelas as quais são feitas com base nelas, sejam adaptações, remakes ou inspirações.
É como o filme armênio Sayat Nova também conhecido como A Cor das Romãs. A obra é considerada única em seu gênero e inspirou videoclipes de artistas como R.E.M. e Madonna. Isso me faz pensar como tudo é conectado.
É como disse alguém que Voltaire ouviu e copiou "Nada se cria, tudo se transforma".
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-08 03:59 am (UTC)Yeah, I like it when I can watch, like, five adaptations of the same novel. When there's only one adaptation I am less happy and feel more like the adaptation needs to be perfect.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-08 04:25 am (UTC)Adorei também saber que existe um outro filme e uma série com premissas parecidas, mas vindos de outro material de origem.
Isso é incrível demais u.u