babydraco | (no subject)

Binge rewatching 90210 for some reason. I'm good at finding ways not to write (I wanted to update my fics before Civil War but so far, that's not happening, I'm trying to make some money for my trip to see the movie and there's been a general "get in shape" initiative going on too, by the time I'm ready to write I'm tired).

I was a fan of the 2010s sequel series too (although I was unable to finish the last couple of seasons), which makes viewing the 90s ones...interesting. Like when Kelly turned down going to Paris with Donna so she could stay home all summer with Baby Erin? She should've gone to Paris, because she's going to end up raising that kid herself when her mom experiences a reversal of character development later, Kelly is destined to be trapped in that family caretaker role, but most people only get to go to Paris once. Maybe she's not bothered by that though, she's always been in the Mom role.

Most of the fics on Ao3 are Dylan/Brandon slash. Heavy sigh. Look, I mean, I get it. Two guys who were legendarily hot in their prime, playing best friends who stare soulfully at each other on the beach as a saxophone softly croons in the background and in the early seasons, Dylan was dating Brandon's twin sister. And it's not like they had a lot of other options for queer characters, no one in the main cast and no one who recurred for more than one episode (at that time, acknowledging the possibility at all was shocking for a teen show, this, and the way they were honest about the fact that teenagers have casual sex, drink, and sometimes do drugs and the world doesn't end because of it is what got them labeled shockingly racy despite coming off as almost wholesomely quaint by 21st century viewer standards). And I wish there was a solid femslash pairing but I'm not seeing it except for the occasional taken-out-of-context moment. The other actresses deserve awards for their heroic efforts to convince us they could stand Brenda (someone tried to mean girl Jennie Garth on another project and she said "you can't scare me, I worked with Shannen Doherty").

It's just so predictable. Yet another fandom boils everything down to shipping, which I get this time because shipping *was* such a big part of it, and I realize it wasn't always the deepest show on tv but...really? That's literally the only thing you can think of to write about?

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I remember a friend complaining about how there was only ever Dylan/Brandon and it got really boring really fast.

(I never watched the show, but I LOVED the Lifetime behind-the-scenes movie.)

Maybe Civil War will inspire you to write more, even if it's just to spite the flood of whatever fanon interpretations we're going to end up with?

Nothing against the pairing, it's just I feel like there might be only room for one or two really great fics about it and then like, how much else could you really do with it? Versus the wealth of other things to talk about.

I haven't seen the Lifetime movie. I'm gonna have to hunt that down.

Maybe there are some archived somewhere? Back from the days of angelfire/geocities/mailing list archives?

Oh, man. I loved the Lifetime movie. And the one for Full House. I missed the one for Melrose Place, but I need to see it. Lifetime makes such fun TV.

There's one for Melrose Place???

Hulu used to have a Lifetime movie archive-it seems to be gone though. Lifetime gets a lot of flack and mockery but they saw a niche that needed filling and they do well at filling it.

Yessss and I need to see it.

It's possible they pulled their movies from Hulu because they made their own streaming service. And yes, I've been very tempted to sign up for it. It's only on Apple and Roku devices, but Lifetime movies ON DEMAND. Every time I start thinking about scriptwriting, I think about how much I'd love to write Lifetime movies. (Except for when I want to write terrible SyFy movies like Zombie Bear Sharks and Cowboys vs. Zombies.)

Poor Kelly and her mom. I hated the reverse character development of her mom so much, and I didn't appreciate that the only reason she reversed again was because she was dying.

I only found one Brandon/Dylan story on AO3 of 19 stories?

David Lascher's Kyle Conners was in three episodes and was queer, but it was very implied and he may not have come out until the third one. Wasn't there someone in Kelly's burn storyline who had a crush on her who was in more than one episode?

Valerie always seemed like she'd be more of a candidate for femslash for me, though that may be filtered through later White Collar fandom. Also possibly Gina? Kelly/Donna could be shipped, and in the (very) early days I could go there with Kelly/Brenda.

(most of this is trying to remember stuff more than arguing)

Things I noticed on rewatch - Steve turned out to be a lot more interesting than I remembered him as being, Dylan wasn't as interesting as I remembered him being, my memories of Brandon/Jason Priestley were pretty close to how I perceived him later, Jim and Cindy were more interesting than I remember them, Kelly's mom was more of a screw-up than I remember her being though that may have been related to her storyline in the sequel series.

Also by the point it mattered, I wouldn't have picked Brandon or Dylan either.

Oh - and naturally, I was very much shipping Brandon/Brenda this time around.
I went on google searches for 90210 fic after my own rewatch and found very little, though I did find one or two, I can go through my bookmarks and link if you like. The oddest one I found was a crossover with Pretty Woman of all things (it involved Richard Gere's character being a business associate of Dylan's dad).

Edited 2016-04-30 13:36 (UTC)

Right? They had this happy ending and it got ripped up because what, the writers needed more drama so they could run the show another four seasons?

Maybe I'm misrembering about the fics? If you have links plz share!

I want to go there with Kelly/Brenda but it would be kind of bittersweet or Kelly/Donna, maybe I need to try harder.

Things I noticed on rewatch - Steve turned out to be a lot more interesting than I remembered him as being, Dylan wasn't as interesting as I remembered him being,
Steve had a lot of really subtle stuff going on, like his anxiety about being adopted and the complicated stuff with having a famous mom and secretly not wanting to be used for his money but thinking that was all he had to offer. That kind of gets ignored because he was comic relief so often. But you can tell he's someone who thinks more and is more observant than he lets on

On top of Dylan being the kind of fantasy that doesn't...always age well...Luke Perry's performance is weirdly uneven.

Also by the point it mattered, I wouldn't have picked Brandon or Dylan either.

Yeah...you get to a certain age, and if you haven't picked between your Dylan and your Brandon, ~~in a world where this is a problem any of us actually have had~~ chances are it's because neither of them has proven themselves to be worth it. They were great teen girl fantasies but to a grownup, they just seem exhausting if you try to imagine sticking with either of them for the long haul.