In this essay I will...

[sociallychallenged]

A hard word on hypocrisy in ships and fan harassment.

Code

I feel a little like I have to defend my like of this ship because whenever I post art of it, I have the unusual phenomenon of people messaging me and saying that they're sorry they can't reblog it because they will make a few people on their friends list mad, and people will like the ship art but reblog art around it because that's the safe stuff. Like if it's seen, they will know and be identified as ~the enemy~. I don't want anyone to reblog this art if it will cause them trouble, because fictional characters in fake love should never give you a bad day. The point of entertainment is to activate the imagination and provide escapism from a difficult to face reality, and the point of this art is to entertain. Don't let it add to a cluttered reality (which also will come into play here).

So here it goes. My defense, as kindly spoken as I can, as to why the relationship can be interpreted in other ways than familial or why the age gap isn't an incontrovertible barrier to a ship.

For a very long time, the Edgar Allen Poe / Sir Author Conan Doyle days and some decades after, that for the most part the average detective character was cold, calculating, meticulous. They could pick apart any case down to the foundations and use raw information to reconstruct all the actions of what happened. Even in other countries, you had Zenigata Heiji (with a detective that used a coin), or the dramatizations of Di Renjie aka Judge Dee in gong'an crime novels. The characters that come off as high functioning sociopaths or detail-oriented autistic folks with middling social skills, that think brilliantly but come with the occasional commentary that leads you to believe the people around them are unnerved by them.

But then came along the Dashiell Hammett burly detective days. You didn't need to be encyclopedic brilliance. The hapless John Watsons of fiction turned into graceless detectives that could hold their own, The Sam Spades and the Dick Tracys. They weren't meant to hunt down debonaire Arsene Lupin thieves or intellectual Moriartys, but to face off against gun-wielding liquor baron Scarfaces that sent their crime family goons in numbers, left grotesquely delivered death threats on their doorstep, and existed as a man that could bear loads of discomfort as he pursued a righteous cause.

Now imagine that one day these two archetypes got to team up? In whatever fashion they might be, finally. The balance of cool calm with the horrible crutch of dismissing the humanity of the victims (other than veiled 'how terrible to be thems') with angst-ridden piles of mess that actually learn from conversations how something happened. A balance desperately needed, too, as forensic science can be as unreliable as a dubiously remembered human testimony.

My preferred pairings are usually partnerships. I only have so much energy, and I can't draw them all. They don't have to be healthy or wonderful, frequently I like partnerships where the two individuals are both equally horrible people. But they're also representative of two forms of respect, in my opinion. And sometimes I absolutely do see a partnership as being representative of father and son. In the Men in Black series, Agent K makes it abundantly clear that he views Agent J as his successor and someone to be protective of. The first movie, too, is subtly about progress. How a poor farm boy became a powerful and respected agent, the most feared man in the universe even when surrounded by elite individuals, but then how he would be succeeded by an underestimated black male cop and a woman partner. It's a parental relationship paired with a progressive narrative.

(Side note: The comic is completely unlike this, with a sociopathic Agent K making occasional derisive sexual comments at Agent J who deeply resents the organization he's been condemned to.)

In Midnight Run (yes, the thing Rick and Morty mocked) it gave us camaraderie between unlikely allies in a calm, collected man being dragged around by a seedy, vengeful, frustrated bounty hunter. They weren't a detective pairing, they were a cop-and-criminal duo with the criminal half being well-meaning and sweeter than the cop half, but it still gave the balance of two types. Cool-headed calmness and grace under pressure, and hot-headed mental acuity. The criminal accountant's there for the bounty hunter as he makes peace with lost family and job, to encourage his better tendencies and give his emotions a safe space, and the bounty hunter is there to put his wits to the task and save the accountant's life. It helped popularize the trope of, "Maybe in another life, we could have been friends."

Lethal Weapon, Tango and Cash, Beverly Hills Cop, Cagney and Lacey (occasional scumbag actors notwithstanding) are not exactly all shippable things but cases that set the standard of the balances of partnership. Even today, with Clive and Liv in older seasons of iZombie. Hank and Connor have roots in this very old dynamic. The wounded self-destructive soul hoping to find the occasional person to give him faith in humanity, still willing to talk to people, and the analytical person bumbling over their everyday interactions and asking obvious questions not because they're a child, but they're used to thinking in technicalities.

This kind of partnership? Appeals to me the most. They have a Sebastian Castellanos/Joseph Oda type dynamic. To me, Hank and Connor are no Joel and Ellie, Logan and Laura, Kratos and Atreus, or Yondu and Peter. I felt like Kara and Alice filled that role, and more importantly, it was a delightful foil to it because it featured a kind individual accepting and pursuing parenthood, filled with gentleness and light. Which is important, because Joel, Logan, Kratos, and Yondu were all well-meaning but representative of toxic masculinity. The children in those stories had to struggle for acceptance while Alice had people making a better life for her and making her comfortable as a priority, while the other potential parents fought their responsibilities tooth and nail. Ever tried to earn an aging self-assured miserable white guy's paternal love as a child? That feels like shit, and unlike in the movies you'll always be wrong and it's far too hard to realize you're not there for their redemption arc. Carl and Markus are also a good example of a parent / child relationship. And I find it appalling that in a game where there are already two very amazing examples of adopted family that people not only try to press it on this partnership but harrass other people that hate that dynamic.

Because Connor's entire arc is an allegory for coming out of the closet (making Hank a jackass homophobe equivalent), I don't feel the same vibe at all. Especially since in parts of this story Connor and Hank face sexual environments with content meant to reflect romantic relationships and not parent/child narratives. You can have the good luck of triggering a dynamic character arc for Hank depending on how you play everyone, in which he actually learns the error of his attitudes, but I got no impression that he wanted to replace his six-year-old (would have been nine by the time of the game) son with a mature, independent and notably superior being with the face of a grown man. The options posed under, "Whatever you want me to be," were not a son. Not lover, either, admittedly. But they were options presented to a man who needed a friend and to believe in the world again. .

Instead, it's more like pairings for R. Daneel Olivaw with Elijah Baley in the Robots/Foundation books, or in John Kennex and Dorian in Almost Human. Or, more frustratingly, it's practically a direct knock-off of the relationship in an old nineties show called "Mann and Machine." In it, a beautiful cop prototype gynoid named 'Eve' is paired with a grizzled, bitter detective who hates her. The show is filled with UST and eventually, them living together as Eve comes to learn more about her 'instincts'. It lasted all of one season, but the dynamic was almost exactly that of Hank and Connor.

Something else I find a little grating is that in the human cop partnership of Dana Scully and Fox Mulder (where the cool and collected doctor is sent in to help with the cluttered but brilliant and moody FBI agent), no one even suggested for a moment that Fox Mulder might be needing Scully to replace his missing sister in his life. In fact, in the beginning, series creator Chris Carter didn't want to ship them because so many male/female crime-fighter pairings ended up couples in fiction and he wanted to show a good working relationship. But what eventually happened as the series progressed? Shipping and children.

There's a tiring note of institutionalized homophobia to it. Hank is an older man, yes. Hank is actually around the age of Venom Snake. One simply likes donuts and one runs through the desert tirelessly. The age differences between the actors for Hank and Connor and Venom Snake and Quiet? Not so far off. Similar dynamics exist for Doctor Who actors Alex Kingston (River Song) and Matt Smith (11th Doctor), and for Star Trek: TNG's Jennifer Hetrick (Vash) and Patrick Stewart (Jean Luc Picard) who had an 18 year age difference and were engaged in real life at the time of their character's canon relationship. If you have a problem with Hank and Connor and can cry foul to all of these, kudos to you I guess. But you may begin pointing out they play characters that aren't exactly human or that aren't neurotypical? Well, neither is Connor. If anything, he's also a lot like Data from Star Trek: TNG (who ended up having a lifelong love/fondness for a hard-boiled ship's security officer who died in the first season).

Connor's interactions with Hank clearly establish he wouldn't do anything for him unless he wants to. Even before becoming a deviant if you choose that path, he finds loopholes in the priority of his 'mission' so he can avoid what he doesn't agree with. Consent is never an issue even at stages where it otherwise would be. The T-800 (Terminator 2) had similar personality quirks to deviant Connor and less autonomy but was never mistaken as childlike. The voice acting is very mild-mannered, but that's as Connor says, to make people more cooperative with him. All of his rationalizations and decisions are mature. Instead, I genuinely feel like Connor's questions to Hank are meant to let the player know that at the start he doesn't really understand black and white morality because it's not been programmed into him. Hank's mission is to uphold the law, right? Why would he dismiss that for the sake of his own mild criminal behavior? Why would he engage in activities like bad food or drinking that inhibit the performance of his duties? Your actions from there either serve to make Hank hate raw efficiency and dehumanization, or further appreciate the fact that he's alive and can provide that gray morality for the right cause. Think of the naive questions and mistakes Drax and Mantis make in the MCU, like Drax's inability to take things metaphorically and Mantis mixing up 'kicking ass and taking names' as 'taking ass and kicking names', and compare that to Connor's behavior.

The larger point being that these canon ships that I mentioned before that have such strong similarities to Hank and Connor exist and are welcomed, with gender being the largest modifier. I should be able to ship this on my own time. And that I shouldn't have to see it as a father/son relationship just to make someone else comfortable. Years and years ago, I remember drawing pin-up art and receiving death threats from male fans who couldn't stand to see their very favorite characters drawn like that. It wasn't even mlm art, it was just beefcake of Dragonball Z guys. I had a friend who regularly drew smut and was found out by a co-worker. He misinterpreted this as her being sexually open and he approached her, assuming she'd be interested. When she refused him, he showed the art to their boss so she would be fired.

What fans are doing now is just a new variety of this kind of thing from the opposite end of the spectrum. Ship shaming to this degree is as bad as what stereotypical angry jackass male fans have done to lgbts and women near their fandoms or hobbies. It's content control through guilt and coercion, and even fear of career loss. Yes, we all get sick of some stuff. For example, I hate with a lethal passion the song, 'Someone that I used to Know'. It's disgusting, IMO problematic, or entitled. But I've quietly shared my hate with friends and I've never emailed a death threat to Gotye. There are ships in fandoms I've been in that make me want to claw my face, levels of woobification and character love that make me want to scream, but honestly? Hate it or not, making someone a better person or find love in unlikely places are power fantasies we all need right now, and death threats and encouraging suicide in ship-lovers doesn't actually do anything to help you improve the state of the world. So please. Be calm. Let me, and others like me, enjoy my ship or even platonic buddy cop goodness. Quietly turn off the tag. Breathe and consider some of your normal ships and reblogs might be met with gritted teeth, and be grateful for the kindness, patience, and respect that those people have given you. And if they've not? Content control through harassment is a standard that never should have been set or encouraged.