Slash Meme, and fic link

[selenak]

From kangeiko:

Teh Big Slash meme
Read and/or write?	read more than write, but I've written the odd couple
Since when?	More than a decade.
How did you stumble into slash?	Via a fanzine, if you define slash as an interpretation of a primary text. I did read novels featuring m/m or f/f couples before.
Your first fandom and pairing:	Star Trek; Garak/Bashir
The first person you told about your new hobby:	The person who lend the Garak/Bashir fanzine to me.
The fandoms you read:	Star Trek (all incarnations safe Enterprise), Babylon 5, Jossverse (all three shows), Highlander, Farscape, Star Wars, the occasional Harry Potter
The fandoms you write:	If we're talking fanfic in general, I've written HL, BTVS, AtS, DS9, SW, Sandman and the occasional foray into FS and now the Marvelverse. If we're talking slash only, then I'd have to limit it to B5 and DS9, with some subtext and references in HL and AtS fanfics. I'm as fond of het pairings as I am of same sex ones, and most of my fanfic isn't romantic in nature anyway, so the genuine slash is just a part of my fannish output.
Your favourite pairings:	Excluding a lot of het pairings I'm fond of, those would be Londo/G'Kar, Garak/Bashir, Buffy/Faith, Xavier/Magneto and John/Scorpius.
Favourite genres:	I've got the highest admiration for stories that have an actual plot as well as character exploration, but do love my angsty vignettes just as much.
Least favourite pairings:	See least favourite genres named below and extrapolate from there.
Least favourite genres:	Chan. Mentor/Student pairings. RPS. Grovel!fic (you know, the story in which character A is lectured about his wrongdoings to character B and made to profoundly apologize, since clearly everything was his/her fault, no matter what canon says). Actor!fic (i.e. stories which pair characters played by the same actor).
What makes a story good?	The ability to capture the voices of the characters. Recognition that said characters have other relationships than just the romantic pairing the writer is interested in. Plausible psychology (and physiology - days of torture usually necessitate a long period of recovery, not spontanous healing sex in a prison cell). And there is something to be said for good spelling, including the correct spelling of names. (Connor, not Conner, Londo, not Lando - no offense to Mr. Calrissian -, Garak, not Garek, Gerak, or whatever else. Etc.)
What makes a story bad?	Ignoring character backstory and traits that the writer finds inconvenient. Turning heterosexual love interests into evil bitches or matchmaking Yentas. Bad spelling. The dreaded "Plz read & review!!!" announcement.
The best author:	Just one? No way.
Why?	Because there are just too many to praise.
The best story you've ever read:	See above.
The worst author:	See above.
Why?	See above. There are just too many as well.
The worst story you've ever read:	HonorH once pointed me towards a horror where Ethan Rayne was a misunderstood woobie, Buffy beat up Giles, and Angelus (another misunderstood woobie) was living happily with Xander as an example for "worst ever". I didn't read it completely, though. Excerpts were all I managed.
The best story you have written:	Hm. I've a special fondness for "Death and the Maiden" because that was the darkest thing I had written up to that point (actually, it might still be), and I think I managed to handle a very touchy subject without prettifying or exploiting it. Otherwise, I'm very proud of "The Hunted, Haunting Kind" and my AtS/Sandman crossover "Ourobouros". Neither is a slash story, though. The best m/m I've written is probably "End of the Affair".
The worst story you have written:	Err... "Losses", perhaps, but that's just by default, and because it was more a response to another story than a story in its own right.
Do you leave feedback?	More often than not. I try.
Do you get feedback?	Yes.
Do you have a favorite kink?	Witty dialogue before, during and after the sex.
Does something squick you?	Chan. Incest if presented as just pretty, with no canonical justification and no thought of the implications for the characters. Rape, ditto. And did I mention I have a parental mentor/student squick?
Is slash simply sex?	Nah. One of the hottest slash stories I've read, by MacGeorge, was all subtext, with someone's finger on someone else's lips as the height of physical contact.
Is slash a way of life?	No.
How much time do you spend reading/writing?	A lot.
Do you have RL friends who slash?	Some.
Have you made online friends through slash?	Through fanfic in general.
Do you think slash is just a phase?	No, since I never was slash-exclusive. There are certainly pairings I can get less interested in (it's been eons since I read the last HL story, either gen or slash) in time, but it's also quite likely that after a while, my interest will renew itself (which is what happened with Garak/Bashir, for example).
Could you simply stop slashing?	No, but then I couldn't stop "hetting", either. Living in a world with limited fanfic options would be dull.
What do you think about...
Ratings G to PG-13	Grand, if well written.
Ratings R to NC-17	See above.
AUs	Depends on the writing. AUs can be great character explorations, or they can be self-indulgent "I didn't like that X left, Y died, and Z stopped seeing W, so I fixed it!" whines.
ARs	Does that mean "Attempted Rape"? Then again, it depends on how honestly the writer in question deals with the issue.
Crackfics	Huh?
Porn	Dear me. Now we get into condescending European mood, because a lot of what American ratings classify as porn would hardly rate an "explicit" label on this side of the Atlantic. Also, it can be involuntarily funny if it reads like a gymnastic manual. All this being said - I generally prefer some aspects other than sex covered in my fanfic in addition to the sex, but every once in a while, a PWP can be a nice distraction.
Angst	Well written, it's my big, big addiction.
Mush	No thanks. Unless it's written by Andraste.
Love	"It does not alter where it alteration finds". Except sometimes it does. Both possibilities have great and entertaining results for fanfic.
Romance	Best if combined with snark.
BDSM	Depends on the writer. Can be hot or funny or both.
Darkfics	Dark alone does not quality make, and sometimes people think it does. If executed well, then I'm as addicted as I am to angst.
Deathfics	Not a problem. I don't get why there should be warnings, either. I certainly won't ever post one.
Non consensual/rape	Can be a powerful subject, unless you prettify it.
Rape recovery	Should never include "healing sex".
FPS	Well, if I didn't like slash between fictional characters, I wouldn't be taking this meme, would I?
RPS	Not for me. Unless the real people in question are dead and buried since decades at the very least.
RPG	Originally I misunderstood what that one was referring to. RP Londo Mollari turned out to be fun but very time consuming, and made me feel dumped when it happened to him...
First times	Great fun, unless they're presented as the solution to relationship problems.
Established relationships	The bigger challenge, which is why I'm slowly moving away as a reader from first time fics to established relationship fics.
Threesomes	Bring 'em on!
m/m slash	Of the good.
femmeslash	Splendid.
Slashing a children's book/movie	Not a problem.
Chanslash	That, on the other hand, is one, for me.
Explicit sex	If you can write it well, more power to you!
The importance of charactarization	Nothing is more important.
OOCness	Unless you're writing a parody, it's annoying to the nth degree.
Canon	We wouldn't be anywhere without it.
Fanon	Depends on the fanon in question.
Cliches	Can't escape them sometimes.
Supernatural	Absolutely.
MPREG	Not unless it's Rygel.
Wingfics	Huh? Is this about Warren aka Angel of X-Men fame or about Paul MacCartney's second band?
Genderfuck	Absolutely. Alara Rogers convinced me a long time ago.
Crossovers	As long as both sets of characters remain in character, they can be great fun.
Group Slut Fics	Boring. Also ooc.
Incest	See: Rape.
May/December	I mostly dislike it, but make exceptions like Londo/Adira.
Het pairings in a slash fic	Yes! Down with barriers between genres, I say.
Plot	Is always a plus.
PWPs	Are like heavy chocolate. Good now and then, but if one eats nothing else, they lose their interest.
WIPs	I try to avoid them, because they torment me. Every now and then, a writers is just so good that I fall for them anyway.
LJ fics and communities	Are of the good.
Mailing lists	Fine, though I'm not on many anymmore, due to LJ taking over.
Big Name Fans	Are inevitable. Why not?
Politics in a slash story	I'm fond of politics, and besides, in some pairings, they're inevitable. (Like, say, Blake/Avon or Londo/G'Kar.*g*)
Religion in a slash story	Depends on the pairing in question. I.e. it makes sense in, say, any pairing involving Kai Winn, but not in an Ivanova/Talia story.
Wake up Gay	Outside of a parody? Lazy shortcut for character development.
And finally....
Your pet peeve:	Demonisation or disregard of canonical love interests, independent of gender.
Your advice to new slashers:	By all means, let the boys/girls have sex, but never present this as a happily ever after to us.
Your slash wish list:	More Londo/G'Kar. That Darla/Nell Gwynn/Charles threesome Roz mentioned a while ago. Irina Derevko/Miss Parker (just because). 1602 Carlos and Enrico (can remain subtext). And, not as a slash story, just as a relationship exloration story, one about Jack Bristow and Arvin Sloane.
The best slash archive:	Haven't been to a slash-only archive in eons. But... Roz Kaveney's stories are all same gender pairings, and all written wonderfully well. It's here: http://glamourousrags.dymphna.net/fanfiction.html
The worst slash arcive:	Why on earth should I look for one?
CREATE YOUR OWN! - or - GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!

In other news, my 1602 fic (aka the Elizabethan X-Men story) has been beta'd and posted, as "Days After".

Comments

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

As far as I can gather, "wingfic" is what it sounds like - stories where characters spontaneously grow wings for no apparent reason. Seemingly this developed out of Japanese manga/anime fandom, where apparently it has a cultural resonance.

"Crackfic" is fics deliberately designed to be as bizarre and OOC as possible for comic effect - sort of like deliberate badfic except there not meant to be badly written in the technical senses. For example, writing a story in which the sheer pressure of fan mispelling caused Londo and Lando to swap places ;-)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the wingfic explanation...I think.*g* (Now I have some scary images in my mind.)

For example, writing a story in which the sheer pressure of fan mispelling caused Londo and Lando to swap places.

Ah. Now that, on the other hand, sounds pretty darn hilarious. Quite promising, too!

[mylexie.livejournal.com]

As far as I can see, we agree on a good many points *g*

One question though - what the heck is chanslash? Have I missed something?!

Oh, and another question - if I were to write a teacher/student fic, what would make it acceptable, or perhaps even likable for you?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Chan = slash in which one participant is a child. Not a 17 yearish teenager, you understand, a child.

Mentor/student: well. Generally speaking, first of all it would depend on the pairing in question. There are some which I really, no matter how well-written, will ever want to read - Buffy/Giles for example, or the recent horror shezan informed be about, Harry/Dumbledore. If it's a pairing I don't have any such strong feeling about, you'd have to convince me how they got from their mentor/student relationship to a romance within the story itself, and you'd have to adress the inherent power inbalance in such a relationship.

Let's take a DS9 example, since this is a fandom we share: Ben Sisko/Curzon Dax would qualify as a student/mentor relationship. Actually, one can argue Sisko/Dax would qualify in any incarnation, and we do know he'd feel weird about it (since he tells his pal Cal Hudson as a reason why he'd never get involved with Jadzia that "she's still Dax"), but we also know he could get over it (he does have sex with Mirror!Jadzia Dax when posing as Mirror!Sisko).

Now spontanously, I'd say that Curzon/Ben sounds very unlikely to me, but I'd be willing to be convinced if you met the above named criteria.

[mylexie.livejournal.com]

Chan = slash in which one participant is a child. Not a 17 yearish teenager, you understand, a child.

Ew. Oh, ew! *shudders* That's horrible. That's kidporn! Can't people get, I don't know, prosecuted for that?! *hopes*

Mentor/student: well. Generally speaking, first of all it would depend on the pairing in question. There are some which I really, no matter how well-written, will ever want to read - Buffy/Giles for example, or the recent horror shezan informed be about, Harry/Dumbledore. If it's a pairing I don't have any such strong feeling about, you'd have to convince me how they got from their mentor/student relationship to a romance within the story itself, and you'd have to adress the inherent power inbalance in such a relationship.

I wouldn't want to read Buffy/Giles or Harry/Dumbeldore either. *squicks* I was thinking of Snape/Hermione, which I must admit I love (though, if she's still his student, I require a good explanation as to why anything would *happen* between them).

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Snape/Hermione is a pairing which I've actually seen pulled off in a believable way.

yahtzee63 wrote a great Snape/Hermione set post-Hogwarts in a world where Voldemort has won and Harry and Ron are presumed to be dead. Snape isn't suddenly an Adonis with perfect hygiene, and Hermione isn't overwhelmed by love for him. They're initially thrown together for practical purposes in a dystopia, and the feelings which do develop are plausible.

The obvious problem for any Snape/Hermione set when she's still his student is of course that this would get him instantly dismissed in any normal school, let alone in something like Hogwarts which is very much out of a past century. So leaving aside the question of Snape's teacher ethics, one would have to explain why he's suddenly allowing his hormones to overrule all common sense and self-preservation. As for Hermione, one would have to explain why she'd fall for a teacher whose only personal comment on her so far has been exceedingly nasty ("I see no change").

Not that these two don't have common ground: they're both clever, which presumably they could respect in each other, and Hermione is the only one of the Trio who after PS doesn't instantly assume Snape is at fault whenever something goes wrong at Hogwarts. It's just that their very intelligence makes something like a romance while Hermione is still a school girl really, really unlikely. Post-Hogwarts? If you're taking the trouble to explain the changing attitudes, I don't see why you couldn't pull it off.

[mylexie.livejournal.com]

The obvious problem for any Snape/Hermione set when she's still his student is of course that this would get him instantly dismissed in any normal school, let alone in something like Hogwarts which is very much out of a past century.

You know, after PoA I'm not so sure about that, and especially since we saw in OotP how much Dumbledore manipulates people 'for the greater good'. Though I still don't think anything should *happen* while Hermione's still a student, I do think the foundation for a relationship could be possibly built during that time.

So leaving aside the question of Snape's teacher ethics, one would have to explain why he's suddenly allowing his hormones to overrule all common sense and self-preservation. As for Hermione, one would have to explain why she'd fall for a teacher whose only personal comment on her so far has been exceedingly nasty ("I see no change").

Not that these two don't have common ground: they're both clever, which presumably they could respect in each other, and Hermione is the only one of the Trio who after PS doesn't instantly assume Snape is at fault whenever something goes wrong at Hogwarts. It's just that their very intelligence makes something like a romance while Hermione is still a school girl really, really unlikely. Post-Hogwarts? If you're taking the trouble to explain the changing attitudes, I don't see why you couldn't pull it off.

I wrote a small fic about Hermione this morning (see my LJ) which I want to take as a starting point to a longer fic. If you have comments on that, I'd be grateful.

(What am I saying?! I have tons of philosophy assignments, am writing a book, want to enter into a writing competition at my university! I don't have time for another WiP! Unfortunately, inspiration has struck..)

[kangeiko]

Chan = slash in which one participant is a child. Not a 17 yearish teenager, you understand, a child.

Weeeeeeellll...... sort of. From what I understand of it, 'chan' initially meant 'innocence', so any character that had an innocent demeanour would do (although they were generally quite young - i.e. young meaning 16-18 teenager-y, not young as in the frightening 4!year!old!draco! fic I stumbled on to that almost made me sick). But now it has become used to designate children (as they are, apparently, the epitome of innocence) and is viewed as common place via japanese yaoi. I have several issues with this, none of which I'm going to go into due to rantage, but, just to say - I decided to try writing chanslash, just to see if it could be done with an 'innocent' but not a child. I set myself a lower age limit of 16 (if it's not illegal to do it, it's not illegal to write it) and worked to see which character could be described as 'chan'. And then twisted its pretty little expectations until it cried for mercy. Because, see, the problem with chanslash (from my completely biased an uneducated view) is that it is just boring after a while. Innocence doesn't hold a great deal of appeal for me. *shrug* It must be a yaoi thing...

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

And did I mention I have a parental mentor/student squick?

Just for the sake of argument I do have to mention that Delenn/Lennier is technically mentor/mentee. (Especially given the way he reminds her of her own relationship with her mentor.) It's just that the power relationships are much more complex than that.

Religion in a slash story Depends on the pairing in question. I.e. it makes sense in, say, any pairing involving Kai Winn, but not in an Ivanova/Talia story.

How about: Ivanova ponders whether or not to sit shiva for Talia? Using the religious imagery from TKO to process the question of whether or not Ivanova actually considers Talia to be completely dead.

(I defy you to think of a pairing that I couldn't sneak religion into somehow.)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Point taken about religion, and that idea about Ivanova actually sounds very promising.

Regarding Delenn/Lennier, that was actually one of the reasons why the idea of them did not come to me until reading your splendid stories. Though I guess what makes a difference to me is that Lennier never saw Delenn as a mother figure.

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

That's why I had to wait until after SiL to get them anything resembling a happy ending. He needed to get out from under her shadow (and have other mentors) before he could relate to her as an equal.

In ancient Rome, though, apparently mentor/mentee was an ideal. We have images of wives sitting at their husbands' feet being read to and learning from them, and there are treatises on how to teach your wife philosophy. I can see it making cultural sense, but I can't say I'd enjoy reading about it.

And if Lennier were female and Delenn male, I think I'd be less enamoured of that whole relationship.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Is that why you never wrote Delenn/Dukhat?

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's exactly why. An older man with his younger female student is too much like some things I've not enjoyed seeing in real life. The other way around is I suppose just as bad in theory, but it doesn't have the same kind of associations. Similarly, I would be much more bothered by a man committing the sort of emotional adultery that Delenn has going on with Lennier even in canon.

And yes that's a double standard. But since men get away with sexual misbehavior so much more easily in RL, I don't feel at all guilty about giving them a harder time with it in my fics. For the same reason I'm much happier with F/M/M threesomes than M/F/F - because there are plenty of cultures (including our own, sometimes) where a man gets to have two wives, or a wife and a mistress. There's nothing subversive or interesting about that, it's just old boring exploitation.

In other words, I do feel a strong power imbalance (especially in sexual matters) between men and women even in our liberated society, and I feel the need to go in the other direction in my fics.

(probably a longer answer than you wanted)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Oh, I understand RL-related issues; my own dislike for such a scenario also informs my general mentor/student squick.

BTW, you want to put your Lennier defense cap on and comment here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/smashsc/75006.html)...

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

Since she only mentions Lennier in passing I'm reluctant to stick my head in.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

Blushes...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

It's true!

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

Paul MacCartney's second band?

... I somehow managed to skimread that as "Paul MacCartney's second husband." Man. Imagine my bogglement.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

He. Well, John Lennon did compare the Beatles to a marriage in that he said he wanted a divorce, like the one from Cynthia...

[andraste]

Mush: No thanks. Unless it's written by Andraste.

I am taking this as a high compliment *g*. The trick is to not cross the magical characterisation line ...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

And I admire you for never doing it...