Because I'm a whore who wants everyone to read my journal:
I’m putting this here because posting it on GAFF would be a waste of time.
Why oh why are people posting statistics and anecdotes in an attempt to defend slash (as if it needs “defending” in the first place. Really people, just state why you like it, accept that others don’t, and move on. Sheesh)? It doesn’t work, folks. Let me show you why.
Example #1: “Oh sure, statistics show that 5% of the population is gay, but it’s probably more like 10% (I know cos I took a test like that once and lied on the answer form to be ‘normal’), so in a group of 10 characters one of them’s got to be gay.”
The problem with this kind of reasoning is that in fanfic, you’re not dealing with a representative sample of the population of that fandom. You’re dealing with very specific characters. And, depending on their canon personalities and romantic history, some of them are going to be harder to slash than others.
Take Character T, for instance. In canon, he never marries, even though his position in society means he’s obligated to produce heirs, and dies, single and childless at the age of forty (meaning that, it’s not as if he died when he was too young to get married). You could make the case that Character T is gay relatively easily.
Now consider Character S. He marries his sweetheart, Character R, and they have rakes of children and grandchildren. It’s not so easy to convince the casual reader that Character S is gay.
Example #2: “So Character S is married with x kids - so what? Lots of gay men marry and later come out of the closet!”
Now I don’t doubt that this does happen in RL. But in fanfiction, reasoning that a character who, to the casual reader, appears to be definitely heterosexual, and who is involved in a serious romantic relationship with a member of the opposite sex, is actually in the closet, skirts dangerously close to the lazy shortcut of “Character H had been dating Character C for a while, and had felt her up a few times like boys his age were supposed to. But since he’d started noticing Character D strutting his stuff around the school, wearing those maddeningly sexy little shorts, Character H realised his feelings for Character C were just (a sham/a phase/a denial of his true nature).” and thus the canon love interest is never heard from again.
I’m not saying a writer couldn’t pull off taking a character with a definite sexual orientation and having hir do a complete 180. But s/he’d have to build it up realistically, and devote a lot of chapters to it (see season four of Buffy for an example of how to do this).
Example #3: “Oh but there’s such a scarcity of homosexual canon characters anyway! If homosexuality was more accepted in society, there’d be more homosexual characters!”
Many, many flip replies spring to mind when I see something like this, not the least of which is “Well then why not randomly make a character black? Or Asian? Or old? Or disabled?” I’m sorry, but if you’re ‘shipping in order to further a cause, you’re no better than the loons who write anime characters converting to Christianity and thus bettering their lives through Jesus.
To conclude: slashers and het ‘shippers, shipping characters is supposed to be a bit of fun - a little extra entertainment on top of an already awesome book/movie/show/comic. If you start getting all serious, stamping your feet and insisting that no-one think ill of your work just because they don’t like the pairing, then it’s no longer fun. Write for enjoyment, write because you want to, write for the people who are aboard your ‘ship, and ignore the crowd who only comment to say “eeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww!”
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Have almost finished MSTing Celebrian. The second- and third-last pages need some work, but I’ve come up with an introduction and an ending, too. Think I’ll take Hydra’s advice and put it up here behind a massive, massive disclaimer.
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I saw the perfect rainbow today. A proper semi-circle, all seven colours bold and vibrant, and a faint secondary rainbow above it. Beautiful.
-^)--)~