Saturday night navel-gazing
I wasn't going to update today, but here I am. I hope that everyone else is off doing more interesting things with their Saturday nights.
I followed a link to this rather interesting post about self-insertion fantasies and the use of Mary Sue as a shaming term in fannish discourse (for the record, I have elaborate gen fantasies involving a Mary Sue, Methos and a set of increasingly more bizarre crossover scenarios). As I read it I was struck by a note about the preservation of "otherness" as a criteria for "good fanfiction" and the author's opinion that this is something slash does a better job of than het. So then my het writer hackles went up until I realized that all the author was trying to do was express why she (?) prefers slash, which is a perfectly reasonable thing for a person who prefers slash to do.
Later the same evening, I decided to start updating my web page, which I haven't done in more than a year. I uploaded four crossovers, including one from 2003 (oh the shame!), and then realized that one was slash (femslash, that is), two were gen with a single m/m kiss and one was pure gen. Most of the stories still to come are gen; two are clearly slash and one is clearly het. And yet if I had to identify myself as a writer of either slash, het or gen, I would say that I'm a het writer. I was trying to figure out why, and I came up with two reasons. First, "slasher" seems like an exclusive identity, constructed in opposition to other kinds of fanfic writers; slashers don't write het, by definition. I suspect this attitude is a sign that I've been in fandom a long time, because I rather doubt that it's really the case these days. Second, and probably more to the point, I write a lot of Krycek and I very rarely write a Krycek who denies the relationship with Marita; if an OTP is a relationship which is always in the background of the character, even if its never mentioned in the story, that's my OTP. Nothing will knock me out of a story more quickly than the denigration of that relationship (and in general I'm not much for the denigration of canonical heterosexual relationships to promote the author's preferred pairing, but this isn't something good authors do much of anyway). So there's always het in the background, when I write XF, even if it isn't the focus of the story.
I was tempted to do a poll (when you see a story by Vanzetti, do you assume it will be: (a) slash (b) het (c) gen (d) crack crossovers ahoy! (e) a piece of crap), but instead I'll throw the question open: do you think of me as a het writer too? do you think of femslash when you see my name? has this sort of question ever ocurred to you? am I being neurotic?
As an aside, I find it interesting that writers of both slash and het insist on constructing themselves in opposition to the hegemony of the other (and gen writers must combat tyrannical shippers of all kinds!). I can't help feeling that if it's ridiculous for one, it's ridiculous for all.
I followed a link to this rather interesting post about self-insertion fantasies and the use of Mary Sue as a shaming term in fannish discourse (for the record, I have elaborate gen fantasies involving a Mary Sue, Methos and a set of increasingly more bizarre crossover scenarios). As I read it I was struck by a note about the preservation of "otherness" as a criteria for "good fanfiction" and the author's opinion that this is something slash does a better job of than het. So then my het writer hackles went up until I realized that all the author was trying to do was express why she (?) prefers slash, which is a perfectly reasonable thing for a person who prefers slash to do.
Later the same evening, I decided to start updating my web page, which I haven't done in more than a year. I uploaded four crossovers, including one from 2003 (oh the shame!), and then realized that one was slash (femslash, that is), two were gen with a single m/m kiss and one was pure gen. Most of the stories still to come are gen; two are clearly slash and one is clearly het. And yet if I had to identify myself as a writer of either slash, het or gen, I would say that I'm a het writer. I was trying to figure out why, and I came up with two reasons. First, "slasher" seems like an exclusive identity, constructed in opposition to other kinds of fanfic writers; slashers don't write het, by definition. I suspect this attitude is a sign that I've been in fandom a long time, because I rather doubt that it's really the case these days. Second, and probably more to the point, I write a lot of Krycek and I very rarely write a Krycek who denies the relationship with Marita; if an OTP is a relationship which is always in the background of the character, even if its never mentioned in the story, that's my OTP. Nothing will knock me out of a story more quickly than the denigration of that relationship (and in general I'm not much for the denigration of canonical heterosexual relationships to promote the author's preferred pairing, but this isn't something good authors do much of anyway). So there's always het in the background, when I write XF, even if it isn't the focus of the story.
I was tempted to do a poll (when you see a story by Vanzetti, do you assume it will be: (a) slash (b) het (c) gen (d) crack crossovers ahoy! (e) a piece of crap), but instead I'll throw the question open: do you think of me as a het writer too? do you think of femslash when you see my name? has this sort of question ever ocurred to you? am I being neurotic?
As an aside, I find it interesting that writers of both slash and het insist on constructing themselves in opposition to the hegemony of the other (and gen writers must combat tyrannical shippers of all kinds!). I can't help feeling that if it's ridiculous for one, it's ridiculous for all.