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Fan Fiction vs. Reality: Which version of TV are you watching?

One of the trickiest things about being a card-carrying member of lesbian fandom is bridging the dissonance between what’s happening inside fandom and what’s happening inside your television. It’s always funny to watch people make the leap to an actual TV show after spending months immersed in that show’s fandom without ever watching an episode. It’s always an enormous shock. Fan fiction is what makes it most difficult because it takes real elements of the TV story and combines those elements with deeper characterization – and a whole lot more nakedness – to create a new fictional world within an already established fictional world. (Often times with even better results than what’s on TV, to be honest.) So, here’s a quick crash course in the differences between what’s on TV and what’s on Tumblr, just so you can train your eyeballs and your heart to accept the difference. Orphan Black The show according to fan fiction: Cosima is a nerdy clone who wants to make dirty science with Delphine. Even though Delphine is working for Cosima’s enemy, and even though practically every other clone has been played by their watcher (whom they’re all also shagging), Delphine is different because she knows Cosima’s clone number, which, hello, means true love, and is also totally romantic and encouraging. She may have double-crossed Cosima, but she’s definitely not going to triple-cross her. Not after sharing Eskimo Pies in bed to recover from scissoring.

The show according to the show: Every clone is going to get sold out so hard until they’re all murdering their neighbors in fits of paranoia. Once Upon a Time The show according to fan fiction: Emma and Regina may have started out as mortal enemies, in both the real world and the fairy tale world, but their sizzling chemistry and their love for their shared son pull them together like magnets. Through the power of Emma’s love, Regina finds redemption. Through the power of Regina’s pants, Emma finds satisfaction. Henry goes off to boarding school forever.

The show according to the show: Regina is Emma’s step-grandmother and if she wasn’t already set on killing every one of the people in her step-family, the way Henry adores Emma would have sealed Regina’s vendetta anyway. Everything’s a scheme with ol’ Regina. Everyone’s a pawn. She is capable of not swooning over Emma in her leather and/or tank tops. Defiance The show according to fan fiction: The L Word season six was Jenny Schecter’s worst nightmare, and Defiance is her best fever dream. A town where she understands every need and every want and also has lesbian alien sex with Jaime Murray at her leisure.

The show according to the show: Kenya is in love with Nolan who is in love with her sister and Stahma is just real curious about that fabled human G-Spot. Grey’s Anatomy The show according to fan fiction: The only problem Callie and Arizona have is finding enough time and enough places to satisfy their lesbonic cravings for one another. Shootings, storms, plane crashes, bear attacks, death, dismemberment, homicide, genocide, cyanide: Just minor bumps in the road on the path to more on-call room sexy times.

The show according to the show: Shonda Rhimes is powered by your tears. Mad Men The show according to fan fiction: In a world of entrenched misogyny, Peggy and Joan find solace and companionship in each other’s arms (and beds), and together they take on the mad, mad ad world of the 1960s, until they’re both at the top of the game, earning equal pay for equal work, and also sometimes doing it in the SDCP elevator.

The show according to the show: Joan thinks Peggy doesn’t respect her, Peggy thinks Joan doesn’t support her. They smoke together sometimes, but squabble more than that, and mostly never really interact unless it’s by accident or vocational neccessity.

Warehouse 13 The show according to fan fiction: Helena and Myka are on fire for each other and the only way to get them to admit it is to send them hunting for truth-telling/hormone-enhancing artifacts that cause them to confess their real feelings and have the most uninhibited sex in the history of vaginas.

The show according to the show: Helena and Myka are friends whose relationship is intense and fraught and the driving force behind their most world-changing decisions. Every time they part, their hearts break into a zillion pieces. They’re friends. Every time they meet again, they breathe real shallow and stare real longingly. They’re friends. If eye-fucking was regular fucking, they’d both be so pregnant with each other’s genius babies. They’re friends. Rizzoli & Isles The show according to fan fiction: Jane is a Gryffindor. Maura is a Ravenclaw. Together, they form a crime-fighting team bursting with bravery and brains, and also bursting with Sapphic desire. They try to play it off as BFFs, but their longing always gets to them in the end. Sometimes in the station, sometimes at one of their houses, sometimes in the morgue, sometimes in a police car, sometimes in a bar, sometimes in a hotel on an undercover mission. They argue because their sexual frustration manifests itself in verbal zingers.

The show according to the show: Jane and Maura are dear friends and professional partners who date men and solve crimes and date men and date men, because they are straight, OK? Glee The show according to fan fiction: A fun-loving story of two lesbian couples: Santana and Brittany, Rachel and Quinn. Each couple fights their attraction at first, but always they give in and admit that no one knows them better or loves them more or kisses them as correctly as the best friend who’s always been standing/singing beside them.

The show according to the show: Finn Hudson and Will Schuester join forces to patronize and condescend to every woman in the Midwest. Pretty Little Liars The show according to fan fiction: Emily Fields is the main lesbian in the queerest town on this earth. Every lady is gay in one way or another. Girls make out with each other. Girls slow dance with each other. Girls crawl on top of each other and take skinny-dips in pools with each other and when some beautiful lesbians die, other beautiful lesbians fall to earth like manna from heaven.

The show according to the show: Same, actually.

What’s the toughest fan fiction/TV gap for you to bridge?

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