Mental Blocks

[grimorie]

Writing a Fringe/Bones crossover is getting harder and harder to do, Fringe has changed so much from season 1 to season 4 I don't know how to reconcile or justify writing the crossover anymore. I mean I want season 1 Fringe with season 3/4 Bones but personally I can't seem to just write season 1 Olivia knowing what I know about Olivia now.

Actually just writing a gen Fringe casefic is getting harder for me to do. This ties in to wanting to read and write a gen case fic in the vein of the X-Files case fics of yore but I can't seem to.  It's more of a mental block though.

And, um, this is going to come off as character bashing but this is just me trying to articulate part of the reasons why I can't get into it. Part of it and that biggest block?

Peter Bishop.

There's just no going around it, no matter how much I look at Peter he is just a walking, talking plot device and the Observers can't be more apt when they say Peter has served his purpose. I never connected with Peter, all the most boring episodes in Fringe to me where all Peter-centric.

First he's a con man, then he speaks a lot of languages, then he can fly planes and then suddenly he can shoot as well as Olivia can! Suddenly his back story is suddenly more and more like Olivias! Oh and the future of the world all depends on his choice of Olivias! Then we flash forward to the future and he suddenly is an active agent of the Fringe Division swaggering in in guns.

I couldn't buy him as dark, I couldn't buy him as an action guy, I couldn't buy him as a charming con guy (the episode where he and Olivia were supposed to be going in undercover in season 1? Yeah. He botched that bad and from then on I could never buy Peter as a con man because he failed that test bad.)

And yet, in the hands of another actor I can buy it, witness, Lincoln Lee.

Lincoln Lee is a genius and he can be an action guy and he can also be Olivias Love Interest or just a very close friend. And it works! I never felt like they were pushing me to a place I didn't want or like I'm being bludgeoned to death by anvils, it feels natural.

The only role I feel Peter is natural in is being Walter Bishop's son and the time when he was high and smiling at Olivia dopely. Those were the only times Peter felt natural to me.

For the longest time I've felt Joshua Jackson was miscast in this role and when Lincoln Lee's character was introduced it clicked in my head. This was what Peter's character was supposed to be all along. This was the guy we're supposed to see.

Then this yellow-verse appears and, honestly, I really don't see the point of Peter's character anymore except maybe making Walter sane or less broken. Because I like the changes we've seen and I like the development we're getting, I like the relationships better.

I seriously dread the day Peter returns and resets everything again.

Um... yeah, I've been sidetracked from my main point but actually the whole sidebar above is part of my point. Peter Bishop is my block, I can't seem to deal with his character in both the writing and reading sense. He is a plot device that doesn't work.

And I read almost everything as long as its written well, I read all sorts of pairings but I see Peter's name and see he has a large role in it I just can't make myself get past it.

If the actor, for me, doesn't fit the role its going to take a LOT to make me get past that hurdle.

(Another example? Shane West as Michael in Nikita. Seriously, who thought that was a good idea? In everything I've ever watched him in he has ONE expression. One!)

These thoughts aren't exactly new but a more recent rehash of the post I did in the past, for which I was so thoroughly trolled. That was a novel experience.

Comments

[chaila]

I want to keep the whole new universe tooooo. I'm trying not to dread what happens when Peter comes back, but it's hard. I really don't understand how Peter's presence kept stuff like Olivia and Astrid being good friends from happening?! Half of me dreads how Peter coming back will interfere with my enjoyment, and the other half of me will find it an interesting case study of where TV chooses to put its focus...

[monanotlisa]

I'm trying not to dread what happens when Peter comes back, but it's hard.

Me too. :/

I do feel that we may keep this verse with only minor adjustments, if for Doylist reasons only. A full re-set for, what, the third time? Is not the charm, contrary to popular opinion. We've already been sent into the dystopian future; that was negated by Peter and Walter's machine/machinations. Now we've been thrown into this new Amber!verse, slightly but noticeably different (like, hel-lo, dommy Lincoln Lee), which makes it the second overall shift.

The Fringe viewers are used to, nay, crave a lot of sci-fi, but that may be considered too much even by genre conventions. Then again, J.J. Abrams manages to screw me over quite consistently in his shows, so maybe I'm wrong.

I really don't understand how Peter's presence kept stuff like Olivia and Astrid being good friends from happening?!

God, I hope that's just a by-product; this being intentional would be even worse. Although of course it makes more sense if you read it more Astrid/Olivia in the romantic sense...which I'm quite wont to do, after all. *g*