~~ pre-slash. it's just hot!
May. 13th, 2004 03:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaI wonder if people's insistence that Kirk & Spock were actually lovers in canon is at least partly to make their slashing in fanfic be "in character". And in general, I keep wondering why is it that people keep insisting that their favorite pairing is actually -there- in the canon to start with. If it -is- to defend the "legitimacy" of their fanfic, I've got to say it's not doing much for anybody, since at least 75% of any slash/alternate het pairing fanfic in any fandom I've ever read, in which I'm even passingly familiar with the canon, I'd consider OOC. Painfully so.
On the other hand, I find that most gen fanfic is pretty in-character-- and I would call the commercial tie-in novels gen fanfic. Hmm, seems like something's going on here, right? Maybe it's just a question of "keeping the flavor"-- i.e., the original genre.
I think the trick is, in order for the characters to seem fully themselves, they have to keep up the same pattern of behavior they started with. That is to say, they have to stay constant throughout the fic-- if they change, it should be subtle and gradual, so that at the end of the fic, the character should still be as familiar as at the beginning.
So if in canon, two characters are very-close-but-not-sexual, that is how it should stay in order to guarantee the fic feels "in character". Conversely, if the characters are at odds in canon, they should generally stay at odds throughout the fic to some degree for it to remain "authentic" feeling. Only the most talented writer can successfully introduce new pairings or character dynamics into the story and retain that "authentic" feel, which is probably part of the reason commercial tie-in fics aren't usually inter-canon-character romances. Like, ever.
That said, I think I've figured out why people make the startling claim that I write Draco or whoever "in character". Thing is, I simply find it too difficult to believably develop him (and I have these pesky high standards). I consider it a weakness, but that also means that he remains semi-stable as related to his initial state. Harry & Draco's relationship is difficult for me to progress. I still haven't figured out how the relationship could believably happen, so the result is that I write "in character" H/D.
The problem, I think, with saying Kirk/Spock "exists" in canon (or any other pairing) is that this doesn't make it any easier to write outright slash, actually, because they'd have to remain subtle and subtextual if a fic were to feel in-character, at least to me.
Possibly, this transition from subtext-to-text is harder to achieve believably in serialized stories than even a long set of novels like HP. I mean, JKR certainly develops characters in some wild directions with OoTP, and then there's the fact that they're teenagers, still developing wildly. Even so, most HP slash is OOC, mostly because writers focus on the changes they're interested in rather than developing the similarities enough, I think. By contrast though, Kirk & Spock's characterizations barely change at all through several decades of their lives, and the same can be said for most shows-- unless they're teen shows, like Buffy
Basically, I think that slashfic operates on a different level than genfic in some central way. It subverts and reinterprets rather than continues the story. I think, though, that the less blatant this subversion is, the better it works (so it helps if one doesn't make the characters flamingly gay or into club-hopping and BDSM also). One has to find a fine balance between changing -just enough- to enable this new character dynamic without sending out too many ripples. And of course, a serious new relationship between presumably straight guys is going to send out a -lot- of ripples. It's a major, major shift.
So to me, it makes total sense to not actually canon-slash Jim & Spock even though I believe they do love each other, really (heh). Plenty of people live their lives with many things unspoken, not acted upon, not discussed. I think that's a poignant and very human thing. I think my problem with a lot of people's approach to slash is that they take something delicate and subtle and make it blatant and crude and obvious. Things are rarely that simple, in reality. I mean, in a way, I'll always prefer a subtextual bond over an overt textual one, simply because it's more interesting; has more potential hidden facets. It's more... realistic.
The reason Harry/Draco are like, my favorite slash pairing is because they basically have nothing to lose, I guess. You can incorporate their petty little rivalry and develop it into something more and you can only -add- subtlety and complexity, not subtract it. There's nothing to subtract, man. They're already as blatant and two-dimensional as can be. Woo-hoo!! (Of course, this also means it's hard to write, 'cause you have to do a lot of work to develop them and thus OOCness is born. *sigh*).
It just bothers me when people point at subtext and go "look, see! it's TEXT!! Text, I tell you, text!" The thing is, when you make subtext into text, then all the rest of the text subtly changes, too. Ripples and ponds, all that. I think the writers' tendency to focus on a single extreme locus of change is what makes a lot of fics seem... improbable in their characterization, at least to me. Changes in behavior are very rarely sudden and intense. Usually it's part of a subtle, long-standing pattern, gently curving in a direction hard to diagnose at the time it's happening. To put it bluntly, people don't wake up gay and in love, generally.
Ahhh, pre-slash. It's a rare and beautiful thing~:) If not for the lack of porn, it'd be perfect :D
On the other hand, I find that most gen fanfic is pretty in-character-- and I would call the commercial tie-in novels gen fanfic. Hmm, seems like something's going on here, right? Maybe it's just a question of "keeping the flavor"-- i.e., the original genre.
I think the trick is, in order for the characters to seem fully themselves, they have to keep up the same pattern of behavior they started with. That is to say, they have to stay constant throughout the fic-- if they change, it should be subtle and gradual, so that at the end of the fic, the character should still be as familiar as at the beginning.
So if in canon, two characters are very-close-but-not-sexual, that is how it should stay in order to guarantee the fic feels "in character". Conversely, if the characters are at odds in canon, they should generally stay at odds throughout the fic to some degree for it to remain "authentic" feeling. Only the most talented writer can successfully introduce new pairings or character dynamics into the story and retain that "authentic" feel, which is probably part of the reason commercial tie-in fics aren't usually inter-canon-character romances. Like, ever.
That said, I think I've figured out why people make the startling claim that I write Draco or whoever "in character". Thing is, I simply find it too difficult to believably develop him (and I have these pesky high standards). I consider it a weakness, but that also means that he remains semi-stable as related to his initial state. Harry & Draco's relationship is difficult for me to progress. I still haven't figured out how the relationship could believably happen, so the result is that I write "in character" H/D.
The problem, I think, with saying Kirk/Spock "exists" in canon (or any other pairing) is that this doesn't make it any easier to write outright slash, actually, because they'd have to remain subtle and subtextual if a fic were to feel in-character, at least to me.
Possibly, this transition from subtext-to-text is harder to achieve believably in serialized stories than even a long set of novels like HP. I mean, JKR certainly develops characters in some wild directions with OoTP, and then there's the fact that they're teenagers, still developing wildly. Even so, most HP slash is OOC, mostly because writers focus on the changes they're interested in rather than developing the similarities enough, I think. By contrast though, Kirk & Spock's characterizations barely change at all through several decades of their lives, and the same can be said for most shows-- unless they're teen shows, like Buffy
Basically, I think that slashfic operates on a different level than genfic in some central way. It subverts and reinterprets rather than continues the story. I think, though, that the less blatant this subversion is, the better it works (so it helps if one doesn't make the characters flamingly gay or into club-hopping and BDSM also). One has to find a fine balance between changing -just enough- to enable this new character dynamic without sending out too many ripples. And of course, a serious new relationship between presumably straight guys is going to send out a -lot- of ripples. It's a major, major shift.
So to me, it makes total sense to not actually canon-slash Jim & Spock even though I believe they do love each other, really (heh). Plenty of people live their lives with many things unspoken, not acted upon, not discussed. I think that's a poignant and very human thing. I think my problem with a lot of people's approach to slash is that they take something delicate and subtle and make it blatant and crude and obvious. Things are rarely that simple, in reality. I mean, in a way, I'll always prefer a subtextual bond over an overt textual one, simply because it's more interesting; has more potential hidden facets. It's more... realistic.
The reason Harry/Draco are like, my favorite slash pairing is because they basically have nothing to lose, I guess. You can incorporate their petty little rivalry and develop it into something more and you can only -add- subtlety and complexity, not subtract it. There's nothing to subtract, man. They're already as blatant and two-dimensional as can be. Woo-hoo!! (Of course, this also means it's hard to write, 'cause you have to do a lot of work to develop them and thus OOCness is born. *sigh*).
It just bothers me when people point at subtext and go "look, see! it's TEXT!! Text, I tell you, text!" The thing is, when you make subtext into text, then all the rest of the text subtly changes, too. Ripples and ponds, all that. I think the writers' tendency to focus on a single extreme locus of change is what makes a lot of fics seem... improbable in their characterization, at least to me. Changes in behavior are very rarely sudden and intense. Usually it's part of a subtle, long-standing pattern, gently curving in a direction hard to diagnose at the time it's happening. To put it bluntly, people don't wake up gay and in love, generally.
Ahhh, pre-slash. It's a rare and beautiful thing~:) If not for the lack of porn, it'd be perfect :D
