~~ reading for parallel vs. AU slash
Nov. 10th, 2003 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaI have to remember that there -is- another world sometimes (not "real", just-- "other"), with people in it who're not obsessed with Harry Potter stuff. I feel so deeply wrong saying that, because well-- I'm not obsessed with the -books-, per se. The idea that so many people know me as a person obsessed with this boggles me. It really does. I've spent most of my life a) not caring about slash & Harry Potter; b) disliking HP and anyone who contributes to the hype (that went on for about 3 years). So it's just -really- strange to realize-- hey. I've become one of "them". The people with the funny hats. Those people. Yeah. I see people mention `Sandman' and Tori Amos and photography and fairy tales and the zillion-and-one things I'm into, and well-- no one knows. All that's very clear is that I think about Harry & Draco sittin' in a tree, f-u-c-k-i-n-g, like, 99% of the time, right. (Although it's funny, the sorts of things people would use to define "having a life", alternatively.)
I guess the thing is-- with `The Sandman' (and all other comics), Tori (and all other music), Buffy (and TV shows in general), all the fantasy authors I can think of (and I can think of a lot)-- I'm not a "fan". I'm not a fan of JK Rowling, either (I still wouldn't say she's anywhere near an author I admire). I actively dislike talking about my love of say, `The Sandman' with other people, because it's -my- comic. It's mine. You may love it too, but don't tell me about it-- I have a very personal relationship with it. I'm possessive about the things I love-- I like having my little personal world I can escape to. Sharing it makes it less special, less intense. The way I feel singing along to Tori isn't something I want to know is duplicated by many people. Even being at that one concert, I was both an observer and alone with her-- but not part of the crowd.
I do like talking about HP with other people, obviously-- but then, I've never had a normal personal relationship with the Potterverse-- and my way of escaping to it is markedly different. My most personal area of escape is my fiction-- I write it, and it's mine. I've co-created it. That's a feeling I just can't get anywhere else-- I can't seem to write in other fandoms, nor do I want to. I read HP fanon first, so in a way it was always a shared world, to me, a whole different experience because it's not that you guys are other fans, part of the crowd-- you create it with me, just by talking about it. The Potterverse is always changing for me, based on what I say and read about it. So it's weird to say that I'm a fan, that I'm part of a fandom-- because I suppose I am, but really it goes against the heart of how I actually interact with art/literature/etc. I may be being fannish, but I am not a fan.
I've always had identity issues. I hate being "the smart one"; but it's hard fitting it because it's not like I can -do- something about having the brain thing. I certainly waste it anyway. In school, I'm not studious enough or serious and disciplined enough or ambitious enough. In casual conversation, I feel too serious, too studious, too obsessed. I can't imagine having a "normal" career anymore: all I can imagine is being a writer, 'cause that's what I do already. If only I can get away with being a dork for a living. They would pay me for being too lazy half the time and too rigorous the other half. It would be a grand existence. I could finally forget about Harry Potter.
Has anyone imagined being 92 years old, sitting in your rocking chair and thinking, those were the days. I used to think of two boys fucking day after day back then, and I didn't do my classwork more than half the time to write gay porn. I was such a pervert, back then. And now I have 3 grandchildren and a dog as old as I am. I can only shudder imagining the kind of long-term mental effects this'll all have. But anyway. This isn't what I meant to talk about.
~~
I was thinking about why I slash (again), especially reading![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bonibaru's response to Ivy's post about her slashy novel-in-progress, saying that without "het combined with lots of homoerotic subtext, you don't have slash."
I've often thought that I don't "slash", if slashing were defined as focus on subverting the text; gaining satisfaction from an undercurrent, some parallel narrative to the main one I see played being out. I really wonder how that's supposed to work-- if you're supposed to be able to enjoy the story on two levels at once or whether this means you priviledge the "slashy" level (which is a type of meta-level) over the actuality of the events. It seems deeply frustrating to me to be so invested in an aspect of the story that's never going to materialize. It seems to go counter to the source of my joy as the audience-- the sensation of getting lost in this world, identifying with these characters, allowing the author to tell me the tale (rather than the more active process of writing in that universe).
I suppose this is where the separation of reader-as-slasher and writer-as-slasher comes in. As a writer, I'm definitely a slasher, but not so much as a reader/viewer. But bybonibaru's definition, I would say you can't really "slash" as a writer, because whatever you write is what's -there-. The readers can slash or not slash (you never know what people will see in your work), but to you, hopefully you're telling the One True Story. It might be ambiguous and it might be contradictory, but that's how it is, and if you change it, it's not Your Story anymore. So it would seem to be a contradiction in terms to then write a "slashy" original story yourself, even though both Ivy and Maya are apparently doing just that.
I like to think that the story I see being told is complete and valid as being what it is. I'd like to think that it doesn't -need- to be split apart into "text" and "subtext", that everything is part of some organic whole. The idea of separating out the subtext from the text and then calling it "slashy"-- and more than that, -meaning- this subtext to be removable-- bothers me on an ideological level, as a writer. I would never write a slashy novel-- I would only ever write a novel. Maybe the characters would be two boys and maybe they would be in love or just love each other, but I would be saying exactly what I'd want to be saying about them, no more and no less. My goal would be not to write a slashable novel with two boys in ambiguously gay love, but to write a novel with two boys who love each other to which slash would be extraneous.
I've always said I "trust the text". Perhaps that can't be true because there's no such thing as the "One True Text". Every reader/viewer is going to have their own individual "reading", but I suppose I'm just not post-modern enough to have my goal be the subtext. I find I tend to stubbornly cling to the notion of gestalt.
I realize that re-imagining as one reads/watches is a more interactive endeavor, more like communal or what have you-- but it just doesn't work for me on some instinctive level. I wonder how many slashers -do- watch with one eye always seeing in "slash-vision" and one eye seeing in "het-vision". It seems rather disorienting and distracting when I imagine it. I've had flashes of "oh, they -so- want each other", of course, but it's no more than flashes. A general commitment to a book series or a TV show seems to have a different quality.
There's a sentiment where if the show is "good enough" that it doesn't "need" slash. This sort of implies slashing characters is what happens when their relationships in text are unsatisfactory, are incomplete. I do know that's not the only reason people slash-- there's slashing just because two boys are pretty, and slashing because you don't -like- the character the boy is paired up with, slashing because you -do- like these particular two characters, and so on. So perhaps (from a creator's pov), a "slashy" source-text is really many things, rather than a simple formula of UST.
Which is not even getting into -why- the tension is unresolved. In American TV shows, especially older ones, one assumes it's because it -can't- be because of the prejudice. What reason would a modern story-writer have to avoid same-sex relationships unless they're trying to appeal to this prejudiced segment of the population?
When I write slash based on a work in which these characters are clearly not having a relationship of this sort, I'm not really re-working the text-- I'm branching off entirely. During the process as a writer (and a slash fanfic reader), this relationship becomes text.
I see it as an AU approach as a reader and writer vs. the parallel approach one can take while reading/viewing the source material. The more you continuously tie the slashfic vision to canon, the more confusing it gets, I think. In the Althernate Universe in my head, some key things operate differently-- and it's not a question of sexual orientation so much as any large change of this sort having to be a fork in the continuity.
Generally, my own limited forays into fandoms have been based on a gen background rather than a het background (which is probably why I have so few fandoms I'd read much of anything in). There's more of a continuity there, more of a sense that my little AU is a semi-plausible fork rather than a rewriting of some basic things shown me in canon. Subtext isn't really the same thing as a -contradiction- of text, so making it evolve into such parallel to one's reading/viewing/writing seems a destructive response.
So I guess I don't know if it's constructive to think of one's own original writing as "slashy". I see my own slash as a reworking into a new whole, and I see the original as being simply a -different- whole. Good subtext has a vital role to play in its relationship with the text-- there's a balance there. I really kind of dislike being aware that the balance of relationship dynamics is -wrong-, unsatisfactory somehow. But I am willing to concede that for some other people, it is the resolving of this state of dissatisfaction that is actually the challenge and attraction of slash.
I guess the thing is-- with `The Sandman' (and all other comics), Tori (and all other music), Buffy (and TV shows in general), all the fantasy authors I can think of (and I can think of a lot)-- I'm not a "fan". I'm not a fan of JK Rowling, either (I still wouldn't say she's anywhere near an author I admire). I actively dislike talking about my love of say, `The Sandman' with other people, because it's -my- comic. It's mine. You may love it too, but don't tell me about it-- I have a very personal relationship with it. I'm possessive about the things I love-- I like having my little personal world I can escape to. Sharing it makes it less special, less intense. The way I feel singing along to Tori isn't something I want to know is duplicated by many people. Even being at that one concert, I was both an observer and alone with her-- but not part of the crowd.
I do like talking about HP with other people, obviously-- but then, I've never had a normal personal relationship with the Potterverse-- and my way of escaping to it is markedly different. My most personal area of escape is my fiction-- I write it, and it's mine. I've co-created it. That's a feeling I just can't get anywhere else-- I can't seem to write in other fandoms, nor do I want to. I read HP fanon first, so in a way it was always a shared world, to me, a whole different experience because it's not that you guys are other fans, part of the crowd-- you create it with me, just by talking about it. The Potterverse is always changing for me, based on what I say and read about it. So it's weird to say that I'm a fan, that I'm part of a fandom-- because I suppose I am, but really it goes against the heart of how I actually interact with art/literature/etc. I may be being fannish, but I am not a fan.
I've always had identity issues. I hate being "the smart one"; but it's hard fitting it because it's not like I can -do- something about having the brain thing. I certainly waste it anyway. In school, I'm not studious enough or serious and disciplined enough or ambitious enough. In casual conversation, I feel too serious, too studious, too obsessed. I can't imagine having a "normal" career anymore: all I can imagine is being a writer, 'cause that's what I do already. If only I can get away with being a dork for a living. They would pay me for being too lazy half the time and too rigorous the other half. It would be a grand existence. I could finally forget about Harry Potter.
Has anyone imagined being 92 years old, sitting in your rocking chair and thinking, those were the days. I used to think of two boys fucking day after day back then, and I didn't do my classwork more than half the time to write gay porn. I was such a pervert, back then. And now I have 3 grandchildren and a dog as old as I am. I can only shudder imagining the kind of long-term mental effects this'll all have. But anyway. This isn't what I meant to talk about.
~~
I was thinking about why I slash (again), especially reading
bonibaru's response to Ivy's post about her slashy novel-in-progress, saying that without "het combined with lots of homoerotic subtext, you don't have slash."I've often thought that I don't "slash", if slashing were defined as focus on subverting the text; gaining satisfaction from an undercurrent, some parallel narrative to the main one I see played being out. I really wonder how that's supposed to work-- if you're supposed to be able to enjoy the story on two levels at once or whether this means you priviledge the "slashy" level (which is a type of meta-level) over the actuality of the events. It seems deeply frustrating to me to be so invested in an aspect of the story that's never going to materialize. It seems to go counter to the source of my joy as the audience-- the sensation of getting lost in this world, identifying with these characters, allowing the author to tell me the tale (rather than the more active process of writing in that universe).
I suppose this is where the separation of reader-as-slasher and writer-as-slasher comes in. As a writer, I'm definitely a slasher, but not so much as a reader/viewer. But by
bonibaru's definition, I would say you can't really "slash" as a writer, because whatever you write is what's -there-. The readers can slash or not slash (you never know what people will see in your work), but to you, hopefully you're telling the One True Story. It might be ambiguous and it might be contradictory, but that's how it is, and if you change it, it's not Your Story anymore. So it would seem to be a contradiction in terms to then write a "slashy" original story yourself, even though both Ivy and Maya are apparently doing just that.I like to think that the story I see being told is complete and valid as being what it is. I'd like to think that it doesn't -need- to be split apart into "text" and "subtext", that everything is part of some organic whole. The idea of separating out the subtext from the text and then calling it "slashy"-- and more than that, -meaning- this subtext to be removable-- bothers me on an ideological level, as a writer. I would never write a slashy novel-- I would only ever write a novel. Maybe the characters would be two boys and maybe they would be in love or just love each other, but I would be saying exactly what I'd want to be saying about them, no more and no less. My goal would be not to write a slashable novel with two boys in ambiguously gay love, but to write a novel with two boys who love each other to which slash would be extraneous.
I've always said I "trust the text". Perhaps that can't be true because there's no such thing as the "One True Text". Every reader/viewer is going to have their own individual "reading", but I suppose I'm just not post-modern enough to have my goal be the subtext. I find I tend to stubbornly cling to the notion of gestalt.
I realize that re-imagining as one reads/watches is a more interactive endeavor, more like communal or what have you-- but it just doesn't work for me on some instinctive level. I wonder how many slashers -do- watch with one eye always seeing in "slash-vision" and one eye seeing in "het-vision". It seems rather disorienting and distracting when I imagine it. I've had flashes of "oh, they -so- want each other", of course, but it's no more than flashes. A general commitment to a book series or a TV show seems to have a different quality.
There's a sentiment where if the show is "good enough" that it doesn't "need" slash. This sort of implies slashing characters is what happens when their relationships in text are unsatisfactory, are incomplete. I do know that's not the only reason people slash-- there's slashing just because two boys are pretty, and slashing because you don't -like- the character the boy is paired up with, slashing because you -do- like these particular two characters, and so on. So perhaps (from a creator's pov), a "slashy" source-text is really many things, rather than a simple formula of UST.
Which is not even getting into -why- the tension is unresolved. In American TV shows, especially older ones, one assumes it's because it -can't- be because of the prejudice. What reason would a modern story-writer have to avoid same-sex relationships unless they're trying to appeal to this prejudiced segment of the population?
When I write slash based on a work in which these characters are clearly not having a relationship of this sort, I'm not really re-working the text-- I'm branching off entirely. During the process as a writer (and a slash fanfic reader), this relationship becomes text.
I see it as an AU approach as a reader and writer vs. the parallel approach one can take while reading/viewing the source material. The more you continuously tie the slashfic vision to canon, the more confusing it gets, I think. In the Althernate Universe in my head, some key things operate differently-- and it's not a question of sexual orientation so much as any large change of this sort having to be a fork in the continuity.
Generally, my own limited forays into fandoms have been based on a gen background rather than a het background (which is probably why I have so few fandoms I'd read much of anything in). There's more of a continuity there, more of a sense that my little AU is a semi-plausible fork rather than a rewriting of some basic things shown me in canon. Subtext isn't really the same thing as a -contradiction- of text, so making it evolve into such parallel to one's reading/viewing/writing seems a destructive response.
So I guess I don't know if it's constructive to think of one's own original writing as "slashy". I see my own slash as a reworking into a new whole, and I see the original as being simply a -different- whole. Good subtext has a vital role to play in its relationship with the text-- there's a balance there. I really kind of dislike being aware that the balance of relationship dynamics is -wrong-, unsatisfactory somehow. But I am willing to concede that for some other people, it is the resolving of this state of dissatisfaction that is actually the challenge and attraction of slash.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 10:18 am (UTC)Re: not sharing certain things--I am totally with you on that. I think any fandom that I've actually gotten involved in has had to be something that I had problems with as well. Like HP, I, too, went through a long period of just being annoyed by the hype and I still don't think of them as favorite books of mine. If I do feel that way, like you, I usually don't want to talk about them. I'll dip into the fandom and run away because I don't want to hear the stupid things other people are saying. When I worked in the kids' bookstore I was in charge of the sci-fi fantasy section and I rarely recommended The Dark Is Rising unless I felt the person would appreciate it. I just couldn't take the idea of somebody coming in and dismissing it or something. Or maybe it was just that it was mine. I was used to going into bookstores just to make sure it was on the shelf and leaving it there, since I already owned it. Sometimes I've given the impression I'm totally unfamiliar with something I actually love when people start talking about it because of that.
The things I get involved in communally are more things I'm ready to pick apart. I really don't feel like I can say I'm a "fan" of HP, though I'm in the fandom, because I'm just not attached to the books the way I am to other books and things. LOTR is sort of the same way--I found something I do love in them and enjoy analyzing that with other people who've identified the same thing. It's very different than finding a book that's "your book," that you hide behind the other books in the library as a kid.:-)
The slash question is even more interesting. I think slash is a natural by-product of an intense m/m relationship, either in the text or potentially in the text (like if these two characters actually met it would be intense). I'm not sure how much it has to be in the text for it to stop being slash to me. Like, I don't think of QaF as slashy because the relationships are already nailed down in that area. I see how they interact sexually. It's no longer a language totally owned by fanfic.
So I guess I do think it's possible to write something as slashy, if you're writing an intense relationship between two men or women because as long as you write in such a way that there are spaces for readers to project, you can be writing slashy. Perhaps somebody like Ivy, for instance, is just aware of how she reads things as a slasher so when she writes a scene she can also look at how she would read that scene. I do think it's possible as a writer to see different possible interpretations in your own work, and even to slash your own work in your head without putting it in the text. Because slash, to me, is a way of playing out the character dynamics sexually. You can learn something about the characters in slash and use it in gen. It's kind of about just reducing the relationship to the most primal form, which can then be translated into slash or poetry or humor or whatever.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 04:37 pm (UTC)I get possessive about a lot of things like that, though :D :D
But especially Sandman, Patricia McKillip, Tori, Peter Beagle, Books of Magic, Diana Wynne Jones, AS Byatt, Emma Bull, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, The Borderlands. Heh.
I guess what I was saying about the slash was--
It seems like a cop-out if your most intense relationship isn't going to get "fulfilled" or isn't "fulfilling" within the text. I don't consider that good writing. That's why I don't really ship K/S in Star Trek-- I think their relationship written as gen (in commercial fic & in the show/movies) is perfectly fulfilling and intense. Slash implies a -lack-, somehow. I dunno. It's like... I don't want there to be this sense of hanging possibility. It's not fun for me to read, I guess.
So yeah, I don't know if I was saying it's not possible to write slashy original fics (obviously)....
"Spaces for readers to project"-- I like that. Hmm. But this "slashing in your head" business bothers me. -Why- isn't the writer putting this relationship out there? Is it -more- intense than the actual relationship? If it is, why? I'm an OTP-type person, too, so I get really attached to the characters and I would never really see a same-sex friendship "that way", no matter how intense, if there was a central (opposite-sex) romance in the fic. You're talking about gen-fic, but I'm talking about het-fic, which is what both Maya and Ivy are writing. They're writing slashy het fic.
I think slashy gen-fic is a different beast, because you can kind of read it as pre-slash, I guess, and it doesn't really -contradict-, which is what bothers me. It's that sense of double-vision, of self-contradiction. The emotional balance would be wonky if there's always this intense shadow behind things. That's what I was thinking about.
Did I not explain it right? I never explain anything well enough :T
Yeah, so I guess I don't like slashing-as-subverting-the-text. I just see two characters in love, and it doesn't matter to be whether it's officially subtext or officially text-- what I care about is the character dynamics making sense to me. This is why I've often thought of myself as a romantic rather than a slasher.
I question the purpose of slashing it in your head, I guess. Why would one do that? What does one gain? If one is really in love with these characters and their love, why doesn't one just write it that way? -Are- they in love? I mean, there's a sense of "what's real" that's gut-level to me when I write something. Like, when I read something or write something or perceive something, I tend to be pretty certain about my emotional response to it, and I'm pretty monogamous in that. So maybe this is just me and my issues. Like... um. I don't tend to slash a text, actually, so I don't know. I've read slash and shipped characters from that fic, and I've read/watched het, and shipped -that-.
I -have- slashed, say... Warren/Andrew. They are MFEO, totally. Nothing in the text contradicts that. I'm not really projecting so much as extrapolating. Projecting is forcing something onto an image, something to obscure or change the image. All I'm doing is interpreting what's already there and taking it to another level. Projecting is the parallel-type reading and what I do is an AU-type reading. In my little universe, Warren/Andrew are In Lurve. In Buffy, they -may- be and I can watch it without being pained because I'm watching the HEY LOOK WARREN AND ANDREW ARE SO STRAIGHT show, like with Smallville. Sigh.
Does anything make more sense now? Or did I just muddle it more? :/
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 06:02 pm (UTC)Maybe my saying I had problems with it was badly phrased...it's more like I looked to fanfic because there was something I wanted to see in the text that wasn't there. I found fanfic by actively looking for H/D slash because I was thinking how the one character and dynamic I found exceptionally interesting was those two and that made me wonder if there was slash. In X-files, by contrast, I did want someone to talk about the show with and was never really interested in fanfic whether I saw subtext there or not.
It seems like a cop-out if your most intense relationship isn't going to get "fulfilled" or isn't "fulfilling" within the text. I don't consider that good writing. That's why I don't really ship K/S in Star Trek-- I think their relationship written as gen (in commercial fic & in the show/movies) is perfectly fulfilling and intense.
Ah! Now I get it. Yes, I do agree, I think. Since I mostly deal with children's fic I guess I probably assume it's pre-slash or pre-anything. I like Frodo/Sam slash a lot, but there I feel like it's fulfilling something that's not in the text on purpose. Like, they end up separated in canon and that's important. So much of the text is about loss that to have it end like a romance (with a marriage instead of a death) is wrong for the story. What I doubt I'd do is, as you said, write het that was slashy because then it seems like you're maybe shooting yourself in the foot. Like Tolkien gives Sam a wife at the end of the story and you're like, "Who is this person. GO AWAY!!" You wonder why the most intense relationship ends up getting thrown over for one of the least interesting, generic relationship just because it's het. Sam/Rosie has nothing to do with these two characters, it's just sort of a symbol of family life.
I question the purpose of slashing it in your head, I guess. Why would one do that? What does one gain? If one is really in love with these characters and their love, why doesn't one just write it that way? -Are- they in love?
Good question! As I said I tend to deal more in kid's lit so it's always more a possibility than a reality. I just started something now where there's a main character who's male, and I suspect as I get into it he will have a girl and a boy who are both very important to him. Maybe as I write one relationship will seem the one that would lead to being in love more than the other, but I could potentially explore the future possibility with both of them in my mind without being able to fixate on one as being the OTP. If I decided that the two boys were my OTP and not a boy and a girl, then I think that would become real to me and I wouldn't write it otherwise. Like, I'd know in my mind that these two boys were going to be in love. If I felt that way, judging by the way I usually am about OTPs, I would find it too painful to imagine writing them as in love with someone else, you know?
But then, it's also true that circumstances sometimes bring people to the wrong person. I might imagine that characters X and Y would end up married because X would never realize or admit he was in love with Z. On one hand I would "know" as the author that they were in love, but I'd also "know" whether or not fate would allow them to be together. So I might imagine what would happen if the two realized their feelings for each other (feelings they might not ever recognize really). That would maybe be slash because I think in real life the two boys would never realize the way they felt.
That wouldn't necessarily mean that I wasn't writing the most intense relationship in the story, though, because maybe part of what's intense about it is that there's this unresolved tension. If you really think the characters are in love I can see why you'd want to imagine how happy it would be if they'd get together, but then turn around and keep them apart in the text because that happy ending isn't for them. Like the way you might imagine how one would feel if the other one died to get a handle of how much they meant to each other without actually killing one in the text. Did that make sense? This is really interesting to try to figure out...
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 08:16 pm (UTC)Like. It's so nice to not have the other person be like, "whuh?" I feel actually sane or something. Whoa. -.-
I'd love to get Ivy and/or Maya's takes on this, but! This is also good, 'cause yes.
See, that's the thing, exactly. It's this sense that the het relationship is some sort of "unhappy ending", some way of things not working out like they ideally should. I can see that, yes, but! In the case of Ivy and Maya both, I think (not sure about Ivy), the het relationship is -supposed- to be "valid"-- that is... it's not supposed to be unhappy. It's supposed to work on both levels, that's what bothers me. Like, on the level where this is a normal fic with a het "surface" or even a het center (I'm not sure, having not read either work-in-progress in their entirety), and as a slash-friendly work.
It makes sense to me to have it be a departure from ideal-- of course! Nothing says you have to have happy endings or romances working out or any of that, of course not. But if the book attempts to front itself as both the "real deal" het-wise and also sneak in a slashy subtext as a wink-wink-nudge-nudge to the readers-in-the-know... that's when it becomes unpalatable to me.
I'm more familiar with snippets of Maya's fic, so I'll talk a bit about that. I know Maya loves them and sometimes she sees them "that way", but I do think that she doesn't really think they're "in love". It's like, in a way, being a slasher, of course any two boys who're really close are "in love", but in her mind, I don't think they are. It's like, a weird addition to still be aware that this is "slashy", but okay. To -try- to make it slashy on purpose-- slash-without-resolution-into-text, that is-- seems like a painful endeavor to me.
Slash shouldn't be painful, should it? And yet it is! It would be painful to me to watch Smallville if I seriously shipped Clex, or any similar show. I don't know why people all subject themselves to this. I read fanfic because there it is text, and I've never been one for always running canon through my mind. I like some believability, yes, but I don't need to be always saying, "oh, but in page 234 of book 3, Snape said...", you know? Heh. I appreciate it, but mostly I just want things to -feel- right. I'm reading it for the dynamic, not its validity as an insight and expansion of canon-- which is a motivation that'd actually make me stay away from fanfic.
So I guess I read slash (and write it) as just "gay romance", or rather just romance. I enjoy boys-in-love romance as a type much the same way I enjoyed medieval romance as a type back when I was 13. Slash though, is different because of this doubling up on the text. And I understand it as a media participation phenomenon (I do go "oh, they'd be so hot together!!" myself, of course), but as a writer it seems facetious and false in a way, if you're trying to seriously push the other side (the het side) without reservation like they do on TV.
If you assume that the "main" relationship is valid (as it usually is in texts people slash currently), then slashing your own novel is a farce, I guess. That's what I'm trying to get at. I think.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 10:16 pm (UTC)Exactly. I would never want slash to have to depend on fanfic. If you see the potential, you can make it so in fanfic. As
as a writer it seems facetious and false in a way, if you're trying to seriously push the other side (the het side) without reservation like they do on TV.
I think I know what you mean--because it's like how could you write a love story while also suggesting the love story is a lie? It's almost like hedging your bets, giving the backup love story just in case. For me--and I realize not everyone is like this--this makes me upset. I don't like the idea of a person just trying out the one relationship where they might just as easily have chosen the other one. It makes me feel like one character is possibly being made a fool of, like she or he doesn't know about the looks his/her boy/girlfriend is throwing across the room.
This also reminds me of this play I saw a few years ago, Design for Living, by Noel Coward. The basic story is there's this woman who has an affair with one guy, then his best friend. They switch back and forth, then she runs off and the two friends are left together. In the end she's about to marry some other guy and the two friends show up and explain they've figured out their problem. They're just not as happy when one of them is missing. The logistics of how they worked it out was left up to the imagination. Did she just sleep with one, then the other while the two guys were platonic friends? Did the two guys ever have sex with each other? Did they all three go to bed together? We didn't know.
The problem with this revival was that they made the slash text. When the two guys were left alone, they started snogging. For a moment this was great because it was two cute guys snogging but...then it didn't work. The threesome became really hard to buy because the two guys both seemed completely gay. Alan Cummings played one of the guys and he was very cute but also seemed very gay so it was immediately hard to buy that this woman had had an affair with him. The other guy was less so, at first, but then when he showed up at the end he also seemed flamboyantly gay. So it seemed like this happy gay couple showed up to collect their nanny so she could take care of them. The happy ending seemed to be, imo, when the two men found each other. I ended up feeling sorry for the woman, even though I didn't like her character much, because she was stuck with two husbands who were in love with each other and not her. I can be happy with a good Ot3, but this didn't seem like a threesome.
Romantic love, especially in romantic fiction, has a real possessive quality to it. I think that's one of the reasons people read them--you want that idea of personal desire and possession. Definitely I think a lot of H/D centers on that. Draco, in particular, seems like a character who desperately wants to be possessed while Harry is one that wants to possess, so they make a fabulous couple. Draco never wants to be free and Harry never wants to let go. So when you dilute that with one character seemingly always looking over the other one's shoulder to wink at somebody else maybe it seems like less a romance and more about something else...?
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Date: 2003-11-10 10:40 pm (UTC)I seem to speak a lot more easily in comments. I think it just degenerates from posts to comments to instant-messenging. Heh. The only place I ever combine all my modes of speech and feel like I attain any semblance of saying what I really mean is in fiction. :>
But yeah-- you pretty much described it (and much more vividly than I conceived of it, too). That's what disturbs me about writing slashy het-- it's like, if you're -aware- of the slash part as you're writing it, then in a way it becomes text in your mind, and all these problems arise. I'm really interested in how DV deals with this, btw, since it has a similar sort of dynamic to work out. I don't think Cassie will just go for any easy tied-up-at-the-end answers, and I doubt it'll go pure slash, so it should be interesting. Hermione does feel like a go-between even now, though a bit of a necessary go-between, and you can tell they love her. Even so, a threesome definitely wouldn't work. I guess I generally think threesomes don't work in any long-term way 'cause of that whole love-possessiveness thing.
You totally hit the heart of it for me, with that possessiveness comment. By slashing you're getting into that whole romantic-attraction kettle of fish, and that involves possessiveness. If it's just non-romantic love, then they could withstand sharing and being apart and whatever. If you're having romantic subtext, then there are all these issues of betrayal and need that are incongruous, I guess. Love isn't just brotherly affection and just add sex. Maybe that's what bothers me, too. It's not just about adding the sex. It's a whole different set of priorities and needs. *beats naive people over the head with newspaper*
I don't know what that "something else" it would be about. It gets all muddled and uncertain-- I guess that's what the subversion of the text is all about, but to me it's just unsettling and not good storytelling. But as I'd said in my post, maybe some people just like/don't mind being unsettled like that :-?
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Date: 2003-11-11 09:10 am (UTC)Oh yeah. I'm just a little slow on the uptake.:-)
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Date: 2003-11-11 06:13 am (UTC)Yeah, me too. I had problems especially with GoF, which was when I got into the fandom. I was also curious about fandoms and fanfiction in general, because I'd never really been in one, and HP was perfect for it - I liked it enough to read more, but not enough to be fanatical about the canon.
I also have the personal feeling about things I love, but in a different way, I think. My love for Trek, for example, does not manifest itself in fannish behavior, but just in great and t00by love - an emotion and a happiness within me. I don't know half as much about the Trek universe, even, as I know about HP, I've never tried to learned Trek technobabble or keep the plotlines coherent in my head. I deliberate forget things so that I can have the delight of rediscovering them when I watch reruns. As far as my crazy mind is concerned, Star Trek is perfect just the way it is - it doesn't need anything more, and nothing fan-created could live up to the original, for me. Totally biased, of course, because I've never been active in that fandom, but, you see, that's the way I think.
But I think I'm getting over this, a little, now, because I've come to realize how much fun it is, simply to discuss things. Even if with the things I really love it might only be at a basic level of "Hey, this is wonderful!" "Yes, you think so too? YAY!" I couldn't stand reading nitpicking of Trek, you know, the kind that I enjoy doing to the HP books.
So it's weird, and sometimes I feel like a kind of imposter because I'm not a true fan or somesuch - I'm here because I like the fics, and I like you people, and I like the discussion that goes on and the way of thinking and interpretation. Sometimes I wish that all this was focused on some original source that I had more affection for - but then, if it was, I don't think I could handle it or be involved in it with as much detachment, tolerance, and general use of sense. So it *is* really strange to consider myself one of the HP-obsessed. Hmmmmm.
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Date: 2003-11-11 11:12 am (UTC)Also, I'd noticed you archive/link to DV fanfic on your site, so here (http://reenka.expecto-patronum.net)-- there are two there for DV under `tribute fic'. Heh :>
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Date: 2003-11-12 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 11:08 am (UTC)And!
I guess the thing is-- with `The Sandman' (and all other comics), Tori (and all other music), Buffy (and TV shows in general), all the fantasy authors I can think of (and I can think of a lot)-- I'm not a "fan". I'm not a fan of JK Rowling, either (I still wouldn't say she's anywhere near an author I admire). I actively dislike talking about my love of say, `The Sandman' with other people, because it's -my- comic. It's mine. You may love it too, but don't tell me about it-- I have a very personal relationship with it. I'm posssessive about the things I love-- I like having my little personal world I can escape to. Sharing it makes it less special, less intense. The way I feel singing along to Tori isn't something I want to know is duplicated by many people. Even being at that one concert, I was both an observer and alone with her-- but not part of the crowd.
Someone else feels this way! *pumps fist* Tori Amos is so personal, I think. Some artists I love love love but I can share with others and the love love love doesn't diminish. Tori... well... yeah. And maybe a few others. Just some random songs, really, are personal for me. A few Dar Williams songs, and maybe some Joni Mitchel. The Griffin and Sabine books. Some of my manga. *reflective* His Dark Materials, very much. Did this have a point? :D!
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 01:11 pm (UTC)Perhaps it's my current state of inability to focus on anything for more than about 5 seconds, but like, wow. Over my head. Then again, the fact that my desk is brownish because it's made of wood is a bit over my head at the moment also. I sort of get what you're saying with the AU thing. Like, I can feel this, thinking back on slash that I've written, that much of my slash fic takes place in an AU world. I mean, it's only slightly AU... nothing hugely obvious is different, they're all still at Hogwarts and everything, right? and in general, everything that happened in canon has still happened in this AU. It's just that it's like this slightly different universe, parallel except a few things are off. And well. making no sense.
What do you mean, btw, when you say, one eye in slash-vision and one in het-vision? I mean, ok, yes, I do think I have a bit of slash-vision, where I go, "whoa, whoa, hold it there, was that not major sexual tension there or what?" but like... het-vision? Is that the same as slash-vision only you do it with chars of different genders? I see things primarily (at least 90%) in just... gen-vision. I take it as it's presented to me. I'm not good at analyzing ... well, anything... because for the most part, I take it at face value. Not really because I choose to, but just because I do. For the most part, I venture timidly into fandom and suddenly go, "Oh! People think [insert two characters here] are secretly shagging? Oh! Huh. I guess it could happen! Whodathunk."
Anyway, I'm just curious, I feel a little bit bad for having made you and the other two betas wade through that really terrible pirates fic that I wrote, especially to give me so much feedback and then have me sort of flop over and go, "Ehhhh I feel siccckkk and this baby looks unfixable." which is probably the weakest and most loserish response to feedback ever, but nobody said I was particularly dedicated. :P So anyway, I don't know if there's anything I can do for you, but do you particularly want anything drawn or whatever? I realize this is assuming that you actually want something that I've drawn, but like, I don't have a whole ton else to give. :P Other suggestions are welcome.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 02:54 pm (UTC)I confuse myself too, don't worry.
Het-vision is I suppose, seeing Smallville and being fully aware of the Chlana going on, rather than ignoring the Chlana and only seeing the Chlex (by force of will). And if you really want to, I suppose you could refuse to "see" any pairing. Like, plenty of people refused to "see" the (canon) Buffy/Spike in season 6 because they hated it so much. I mean... I'm talking about a way a bunch of people I'd read the commentary of say they perceive the shows/texts they slash or just pair up characters in non-canon couples. And I think some viewers/slashers see it both ways-- they see the "reality" of the obvious hetness of the show (i.e., they're not living in denial), and they're also seeing their pet pairing casting those lusty glances at one another or whatever. It's like... I'm not sure how this works 'cause it pains me to do it. But I imagine anyone who seriously slashes an on-going show is going to have to do something like that. It's not a question of analyzing so much as thinking these those boys are hot (like, the people watching the O.C. or Everwood or whatever), and kind of... putting them together in your head as you watch.
Since you're not much of a TV-viewer, I suppose you wouldn't have much experience with this.
Also, yes, I want you to illustrate as much of something as you possibly can. Ehehehe. I'll email you about it :D :D :D
*EVIL LAUGH!!1*
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Date: 2003-11-10 02:58 pm (UTC)Ok. Hehe. Sorry. I know what you're saying (I think). I'm just being iimmmmaatuuurre. :D
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Date: 2003-11-10 03:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-11 11:11 am (UTC)I am not!
Hmmm. Okay, maybe I am. Well. It's just that. There's real slash in Ivy's, damn it.
Okay, so there's real slash in mine too, kind of.
But my point is! I mean. When I'm writing. There are so many different levels. There's 'OH MY GOD THIS IS WHAT'S HAPPENING I JUST WANT TO CRY. SMILE. LAUGH. WHATEVER.' and then there's 'STRUCTURE THAT SENTENCE BITCH! C'MON! C'MON! DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES YOU USED THAT WORD? YOU'VE BEEN A BAD GIRL AND NOW YOU MUST BE PUNISHED!' and then there's 'HEE. OH MY LITTLE BOY' and then there's 'YUP. HERE IS MY PERFECT PLAN. IT'S ALL FITTING IN SO NICELY.' and yeah, sometimes in the back of my mind there's like 'Bwhahahaha, I believe one day a slasher will read this bit and fall off her sofa.'
So. Hm. I *don't* think of it as 'slashy.' But then, a lot of the time, I don't think of say Underwater Light as slashy. ('that's because it's not, you little non-sex-writing plebe' say the masses, and toss fruit hurtfully.) Because in every story, there is SO MUCH going on. Just like life. Layers, you know. Tasty layer cake of story, and a million rainbow possibilities that existed, and things that were impossible but that you were aware of, just the same.
Ahahahaha. I never think about when I'm old. I hate that. When it comes, baby. But I'll so tell my great-nieces and nephews about the slash. THEY WILL NEVER COME TO VISIT ME, NEVER.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-11 11:23 am (UTC)PS#1: Dude, Diana Wynne Jones. The Chrestomanci series. CHRISTOPHER, MY CHRISTOPHER. Am I right? lovelove.
PPS#2: I don't have that possessiveness thing. Or I do. It's like, I only want this to be appreciated properly, but I have this blithe and childish confident faith that this is so good people WILL appreciate it, whatever it may be, and I pimp it out and then sometimes people *don't* like it, and then I get all crestfallen and they're like 'didn't know it meant so much to you, *cough* freak' and then I do it all again. Hope springs eternal.
PPS#3: In re you and SM's comments, well, I mean, yes it is painful in a way. But then a lot of stories one writes are painful for some reason (I know you know what I mean when I say wah! and wand!) but you write them that way because that's the way you see it. Because I did see this reallyreally deep relationship between my boys from the start. But. You know. It's kind of cool to observe how people can also be messed up. Because they're not 'like that' but they have a lot of the elements of 'like that' and it causes a lot of problems in my hero's marriage, and the like. Because in a way it would be nice for a resolution of finding each other that way, but that's not the story I set out to write, but it is supposed to have elements in it, just like all the other problems. It's an ingredient but it's not the story.
... this does not feel coherent. Post!
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Date: 2003-11-11 03:20 pm (UTC)I mean, in a way, slash is sad because from an OTP'ers pov, this is what -should- have happened, it would be -better- if it happened (like, in Due South & SW:TPM & other shows where the main relationship which everything revolves around is a male&male one). So I wouldn't want to create this split, it seems... not conducive to one's fully realized vision, I guess.
But! What you're saying (and what I pretty much could tell was the case) is that you write holistically, where everything has its place and it's -meant- to be that way and it's not slashy, it just IS. And that's exactly what I was talking about! Yes! That's how -I- would write. I don't write slash, I just write about these characters and their feelings and their lives, yes! It's just -thinking- about your own work as "slashy het" and meaning it that way that discomforts me. I totally know what you're saying, in other words, 'cause that was the ideal I was referring to in the original post, actually.
I thought Ivy was just writing about two boys and their peculiar particular relationship too, but then she said it's slashy but it's het, so I was just set off. And then
I write like that too, with the layers and the different threads, and it's really strange to me to imagine putting it into that sort of category. I mean, my chaptered-fic, right. For the longest time, I wasn't sure if you could even -call- it H/D, even though it was about Harry & Draco, because like-- well-- it wasn't really about how they were checking each other out one day and then realized they really wanted to shag and have a million man-babies. It was only when they -did- start pawing at each other somewhat that I was like, OMG I GUESS THIS -IS- H/D, WHAT DO YOU KNOW! >:O heee.
PS! PS!
Date: 2003-11-11 03:21 pm (UTC)I don't have a lot of people I know who'd share my tastes in any way shape or form. But yes, when I found someone I hung out with who liked fantasy for the first time, I totally forced him to read all my favorite books. All of them, ahahah. I was like, "HERE YOU HAVE TO READ THIS NOW". Heeee. It's just the massive communal-fandom thing that I was talking about, not the personal-sharing thing.
Also. Heeee. I really have to do those edits. My procrastination frightens me. I have to put some finishing touches on the DA scene (which you mentioned and SM wanted it so I wrote it, wanna seeeee? Heee *needs motivation*) and. Yes.
All I want is for all the elements to be integral, connected, just right together. Slashiness implies incompleteness, dissatisfaction, you know what I mean? Otherwise it's not slashy, it seems to me, it's just what it is: a (textually) intense same-sex relationship, like Kirk & Spock or Holmes & Watson or whatever. Yes. I shouldn't have doubted thee, My Captain :D :D
PS. Can you see Roth & Conrad "that way" believably? How much would have to have been different? I mean, you can just say, "well, they're not gay", and that would work, too :D :D
Re: PS! PS!
Date: 2003-11-11 03:41 pm (UTC)Mmm.
*blinks* Yes I want to see! always! Girl, you have to ask?
Well, I mean, CHRISTOPHER. And he grows up. So. Cool. and then you read the first book and you're like, you GIANT DORK, hahaha, wait until you wear your DRAGON ROBES! I heart Christopher.
Yes! That's what makes writing about relationships so complex. Because with the most complex ones, sometimes the best ones, especially with a Pawing Each Other Mental Inhibiter, like 'dude I hated this guy' or 'dude I thought I liked girls' or 'thank you, too busy with my mental problems' you don't get to the pawing each other thinking even though the people reading it can see it and are waiting for it until the 'boom chicka PAWING EACH OTHER' thing. Which will make your fic Teh Cool, but then in a fic without a sexual relationship is like... hmmm... because it *could be there* and it's not.
Which kind of makes me think of being on the plane back from Florence with Natasha beside me, writing this v. intense Conrad and Roth fight scene, and she was all, 'You know, right now, right here in the story, they can totally have a LOT OF HOT SEX.' to which I said, 'Natasha, you're not even into that' and she said 'I AM JUST SAYING. Can I read your Underwater Light 18 snippet? Kthx.'
Because lines blur, dude.
Which gets me to your PS! And er, can't really say, 'well, they're not gay' because it's PRETTY HEAVILY IMPLIED that Roth is in fact getting it on with two other male characters. Because he's, like, a slut.
See. The whole thing's tricky. Because it's told through Conrad's eyes and he is a complete, complete sexual innocent. As in, aged 22, Roth's all like 'so then I was a woman, and I had sex with women, and it rocked!' and Conrad's all 'WOMEN CAN HAVE SEX WITH WOMEN? WITHOUT MEN? WHY? HOW DOES THAT WORK? OMG!' so again with the pretty heavy implications that Conrad is blithely unaware of any possibility of gay, so he feels quite free to think Roth is pretty and adore him and play with his pretty hair, more or less.
I *could* do it. You know. With all that. And yeah, I can *see it.* But. Hm.
While talking about it with poor Las over tea in my bed, she was all 'so. But. Say one of them wanted it. Say one of them was all 'I am totally in love with you and let's have sex.''
and I was like, 'well, then, yeah.'
and she was all, 'WHAT A DAMN NICE FRIEND.'
and I was like, 'Oh, but. You know. If one of them wanted, the other one would want it too. It's just. That it doesn't *occur.* Maybe.'
I feel I never come to any conclusion in these replies. I just ramble ceaselessly! I should hire someone to clarify my statements.
Re: PS! PS!
Date: 2003-11-11 04:17 pm (UTC)heee. i've read parts of ivy's book, and then she um, moved it. o_0 i should ask her for the link again -.-
although somewhere, i think i still have it printed out, ahahah. um.
......you have this... thing, about writing about sexual innocents, don't you :> :>
you know, i've never even dealt with that. i mean... whenever i write h/d, i always have harry and draco just kind of fall on top of each other in a crazed hormonal storm, and it sort of coalesces and happens all at once. like, in the fics where draco's lusting after harry for weeks/months, i always stop, can't continue. they remain unfinished 'cause i lose sight of the other person, it's all obsessive and insular and i can't imagine how such a private yearning could ever "spring free" so to speak. i'm all about the repression & the spontaneity, otherwise everything's weird. especially since i bend towards writing h&d friendship in some way shape or form, so if one of them was all obsessively sexing after the other, it'd be like, "um." weird. poor UL!harry. *pats him* oh man, you -have- to have a happy ending. you know people would come to your house with placards and a Slash UL!H/D parade if you don't :D :D i'd prolly come too, but i mean, i just take any excuse :D :D
i can see how it wouldn't come up, 'cause i'm sure there are a lot of potentially gay relationships out there that never happen. i mean, one has these submerged twinges about one's friends. if one is bi, ahahaha. um. although, doesn't conrad "grow up" and become less innocent at some point, and so on?
i guess it's just that i'm All About The Love. it's not about who has sex with who, really, but about the central relationship in a story being fruitful somehow. and it makes me feel all unsatisfied by the book if the central relationship is always somehow... off-center. but then romanticism isn't like, the be-all-and-end-all of fiction, so there's that. in slashed media, usually, the writers are A) often trying to tell you that some het relationship is TEH OTP, and one just doesn't believe it (like the Clana) or B) there is no central sexual relationship, so one can happily have non-sexual gennish male bondage. (um, except the not-as-kinky kind).
and then there's when the -slashers- write "het" which is C) there's a central het relationship which isn't central.
like, have you watched `hercules: the legend continues'? it had an interesting dynamic, in that hercules had the most consistent relationship with his sidekick, iolaus, right. he saved him all the time and blahblah and they would do anything for each other. but i liked it 'cause it was clear that it was het, too, and it wasn't superficially het-- it wasn't because they didn't realize they had something better but they're too dumb. hercules was clearly obsessed with his dead wife and he was clearly falling in love with all these other women left and right and so on. so yes. intense male relationship, but the het's still valid.
but then there's xena, which is another type-- xena and gabrielle were so close, so close, that the show didn't even -try- to have xena fall in love with anyone else, because it would simply not even be believable! they were never textually together, and supposedly they were het (riiiiight), but really it was almost-text. there's just no -room- in these that particular sort of dynamic for a healthy tertiary bond, you know. that's what upsets me, i guess, not for any sort of defendable reasons, even. like with DV!Harry&Draco, for instance. if they really do wind up paired up with other girls, or just apart-- it would be so stupid. they'd never be happy. and okay, you can write them not happy, but!
if you -did- write them as satisfied anyway, after setting up this dynamic where they need each other and that's it-- it would be wrong. it's that "are they satisfied without each other" thing. if they're not, okay, unhappy but hey. if they -are-, it's just like the het is a smoke-screen, and i feel like they all deserve better. or something. and i haven't come to a conclusion either, but hey :D
Re: PS! PS!
Date: 2003-11-11 04:32 pm (UTC)OK, dude, Harry was a lot of fun and I did it again, so sue me. :) Except without Central Romance you can just slosh the innocence in all directions. (Conrad's trip to the brothels - v. fun.)
Xena and Gabrielle weren't canon? I thought they were canon! There was this episode where only her true love could save her and Xena kissed her on the lips! And then they were reborn but Xena was in a boy's body and they got together! I didn't watch many episodes but I did think they were canon! Dayum. If they can get away with that Las never needs to het-beta again.
Hmmm. I'm thinking about the incompleteness. And of course I harbour a secret and terrible fear that DV!Harry might end up being all right if Hermione married him and Draco just sent a Christmas card every year. please, nononono.
I'd say it's in between the Xena and Gabrielle and the Hercules and Iolaus dynamic. Because Conrad can and does fall in love with someone else, but on the other hand the relationship is difficult because she realises that Roth's getting something she's not getting and there's this scene that kind of summarises it in the fourth book but...
eh. damn, you know I should just beg you to be a beta and get it over with. :)
I still cannot believe the Xena/Gabrielle was not canon, man!
could Hercules live without Iolaus? if he couldn't, does that make it slashy? questions, questions.
Re: PS! PS!
Date: 2003-11-11 08:43 pm (UTC)I know what you mean about DV. I'd rather they be unhappy & apart than happy and apart. Yes, am cruel mistress.
Of course, can't imagine Cassie'd write it in some sort of picket-fence sort of way, so like... for all we know, one of the threesome'll be dead. Probably will be, too. (WAHWAHWAH).
And duuuude!
!!
o_0
Like you'd need to beg me, eheheh :D :D
You must know I would always totally love to give you any reading/feedbacking services you might require, and then some. Although you already have a Mighty Het Beta, ahahaha. What am -I- good for? :> *bounces* But who cares, I'd love to anyway :D :D *shameless*
I think it was semi-canon. Or something...? Like... it was obviously there, and yet. I think...? Can't talk, clearly, being... well... an ebil non-canon-watcher, but. Have heard gossip, eheheh. Didn't watch after hearing she'll die a gruesome death. Tend to avoid deathfic/show/etc. *coughs!*
Hmmm, well, I was actually thinking about the living-without aspect recently because of people talking about the Due South guys and how the show is always inherently slashy because they're soooo devoted and would clearly easily die for each other. And how that sort of relationship is so much less than what they'd have with any female, y'know? So people slash them almost out of pity/concern because like... without each other, they're incomplete, but they could definitely live without "the girl". Some fics have them living with each other in some cabin in the woods sexlessly, and they're all happy & sometimes they shower together (AHAHAHA) and it never gets to "that level". And then in that one cabin-fic (or future scenario, not sure), they also go out to have one-night-stands with random females to "take care of their needs". And the person writing this was saying how unsatisfactory and flat that was, to have to go outside just to fulfill the sex need, how they should really just do everything together because clearly they don't want anybody else.
So the question is, do they want anybody else?
I mean, one can't live without one's siblings/friends too. It depends just -how- close you are-- also, this is such an unrealistic situation. At least, it's very rare, and it's really hard to say 'cause it's not like you can do a bit of on-the-spot research about platonic life-bonds, y'know. My feeling is that this dedication is transcendent-- it's love. Whether you want to take that pure love to a sexual level to complete all circuits... depends on what your philosophy of human living/needs is. Like... I'd love Kirk & Spock to retire together (with Bones not far away). I can totally see them living happily (and sexlessly). Jim wouldn't be so happy with the sexless part, so he'd prolly always be seducing random maidens, so to speak.
PPPPS :>
Date: 2003-11-11 08:46 pm (UTC)Also, the "I would die for you/you mean everything to me" male-bonding type fic is called "smarm", being in between slash & non-slash. Very popular, too. Related to hurt/comfort :D :D
Re: PPPPS :>
Date: 2003-11-12 03:54 pm (UTC)see. Las does the whole 'scathe! scathe' thing but I've noticed how you're always (with UL I mean) sending me down this Rilly Cool Path of Thought. And. I like the paths.
Yes. you're my *Robert Frost* road, dude. ahem. *still excited* Thank you!
Oh, well. Hm. *thinks* I thought it was canon. But, you know. I gave up, too. And was never all that big a fan in the first place, but I watched it with a dear friend. (And! I had the biggest crush on Ares. Like, ever. Ahem. Am *so* shallow. Shallow like expensive teacup!) But then I was channel-surfing one day and I saw the Kiss and the One True Love and I was all 'well matey, lesbians ahoy.' But I guess you don't *know* if it's canon, because you can't show The Real Gay on primetime, can you? So they could have been having it off but the kiss was about all that could get by the censors. Now I have this urge to find Xena fans and ask for the skinny. Must repress.
Well, they *could* live without each other, push came to shove. Not without, like, the psychological trauma of all time, but yeah. And I think they *could* be content with just each other, but you see, Conrad has to stay in one place and Roth needs to move around so it's never an option.
And sadly, with Teh Sex, Conrad is All Hung Up on the Meaningful and the Forever and the Love and the Marriage, because of his faithless lyingbastard father. Yes. Yes I invented a fantasy world just to put a sexual repressive in charge. My God.
Oh, I KNOW! I totally want DV Harry to curl up in a little ball of hermit trauma if Draco dies. No Hermione! I want emphatic rejection. 'I am sorry but you and indeed all the world are AS DUST now! I will now go insane! Thank you! Ours was the love, you know, the One True Love!' Hermione: Wasted all that time on the gay ones. Who's the smart one now, Hermione? Who? Who? Ahem.
Re: PPPPS :>
Date: 2003-11-13 01:22 am (UTC)*bounces* heeee. I'm as road, I'm a stream. *giggles* I'm the tasteful anthology selection. Or not >:D
Ares, yes. And the thief, whatever his name was... or was that Ares except in his guise as the thief? *confused* hee.
AHAHAHAH Kept apart by foul logistics! Curses! ahahahaha, I imagine writing a fic where H&D are kept apart by lodging needs. It cracks me up :D :D
So like... Conrad only ever has sex within marriage? ahahahah. So Harry is like, much more loose & wild, you're saying :D
Because UL!Harry -has- to get it on. HE SIMPLY HAS TO >:O
I think I only say that so I can cackle at UL!Draco's expense if/when it happens. Oh, I will cackle. It's good he's not real because I'd never let him live it down. Never. I will be an infernal nuisance with the "MUWAHAH TOLD YOU SO" and such. I take such wild joy in characters cracking and eating their hat, I really do >:D
EHEHEEHE. it would almost be fun (almost) to have the worst happen just to see DV!Harry totally lose it and reject everyone. It's like some sort of revenge fantasy gone bad or something. I don't even know revenge on -whom-, exactly. Draco, I think. Or rather, it's just so embarrassing to realize that the raving earnest boy has actually got you whipped. MUWAHAHAHAH :D um -.-
(heeeee we make such a pair with the rambly insanity. heeeee!)
Re: PPPPS :>
Date: 2003-11-13 02:42 am (UTC)Mmkay. *squee.*
I forgot the thief! Was he called Autolycus? Maybe. Maybe he was. I think he was a real person. Oooh. There should be slash.
(and I am BAD.)
(but all that leather of Ares.' you know what I'm saying.)
(EVIL.)
Well, you know, UL!Harry could marry Ginny and get all the action. She is currently the proud possessor of most-Harry-kissed-lips-EVAH. Bwah!
Well, Conrad does end up having extramarital sex, but it takes firstly, extreme and dedicated persuasion, and secondly, psychosis, to pull this off. Is*sues,* my friends.
NONONONONONONONONONONONONO. No rejecting of DV!Draco. No! That's... wrong. Immoral, almost. HE HAS SUFFERED ENOUGH.
(I know 'tis such fun!)
Re: PPPPS :>
Date: 2003-11-13 11:13 am (UTC)I mean. Prompt, I'm not, but eeeeeeeeeee >:D
The more I think about it, the more I think Ares was doomed to humanity for some period and he became... human, though not sure if he was the thief. But he -was- human at some point. And like, snarky.
Dude, it's funny to even hear you say that about Ginny considering how Draco-obsessed UL!Harry is. I mean, he could marry her, yes, but he'd need a lobotomy first :>
Also, that's sort of really disturbing. I hope he wouldn't like, make her dye her hair blond and wear pants and teach her to drawl. I can totally see it. Poor ickle UL!Harry morphing into YEW!Harry. I can see it :D :D
I didn't mean he'd reject DV!Draco. all the rejecting is if DV!Draco ...I dunno. Dies. Or goes off to live in a torrid love-nest with Ginny (though that would be wrong in just, so many ways). Or Hermione, ahahaha. Actually, this is cheering me up, 'cause all that is so deeply unlikely, so basically we're left with him either dying or being alone with Harry ...also being alone. Dude, I can't even begin to predict DV's ending. My brain hurts -.-
And Draco's the one doing most of the rejecting now, anyway. Ain't that always the truth. Boy can't take a no-- one little rejection and he'll resent you for ages. *sighs* Yeah, fragile ego, yeah. *is long-suffering*
He's suffered enough and he knows it, man, what with the vindictiveness and the cattiness and. Wait, I'm thinking about canon!Draco :> Heee.