Episode 39: Metachat
Metachat Transcript for Episode 39
Hosts: wook77, tripperfunster, fiona_fawkes starduchess
Wook: Hello and welcome to slashcast metachat, I’m wook77 and I’m sitting here with fiona_fawkes, tripperfunster, and starduchess to discuss sex and romance, sex versus romance and all that it entails. Why don’t you guys take a second and introduce yourselves for everybody?
tripperfunster: My name is tripperfunster and I am primarily an artist and sometimes writer in a few different fandoms. I started out in Harry Potter fandom, mostly as a Snarry shipper but have spread my wings to Star Trek and Grimm and Phineas and Ferb and at the moment primarily obsessed with the Avengers.
fiona_fawkes: I’m fiona_fawkes and I am primarily reader, reccer little bit of a community writer. Currently I am involved in Sherlock fandom, little bit of dabbling in Merlin and my original start was way back in Harry Potter. And back there I moderated the community hpslashnotsmut.
starduchess: Hi I’m starduchess, I am mostly a writer and reader and sometimes do beta work as well. Started off a long time ago with the Legend of Zelda in different web rings and that led to fanfiction.net where I found a few the other things I liked especially Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets and Voltron Golion which I loved as a kid and then from there into Harry Potter which is where I am now.
Wook: Ok. So Fiona mention hpslashnotsmut which is one on my favourite communities ever. So lets launch based on that into our discussion. Is sex necessary for you to enjoy a piece of fiction or a piece of artwork?
fiona_fawkes: That’s a pretty easy answer for me, I’m gonna say no. It’s a nice additive in some cases but in no way am I going to read or not read something based on whether there is explicit content.
starduchess: I’d agree that, I can’t say that’s not a yes or no answer for me. I don’t necessarily need to have it all fic and there is a lot of great stories that zip so there’s no sex whatsoever Im very fine with Gen fic. And then on the other hand if it’s a very romantic story and you get to the end and there’s not even a sign of sex at all you are just sort of left a little disappointed. Even if it’s not explicit it would a sighting. And writing in some respects romance is eventually leading to the sex and that’s why you have romance. So if it’s not even a possibility I think it’s a little bit of a let down to people.
tripperfunster: I would say for me, I do read some Gen fic but mostly when it’s either an author that I know and love or it’s been recced by somebody that I know and love. For me I’m more interested in the relationships and generally the sexual relationships, though I don’t necessarily need the sex in the fic, I need more of the promise of sex, the unresolved sexual tension, the budding romance of getting over the obstacles that stand between them and getting together. And again it’s always a little disappointing when it fades to black but it’s still acceptable. For my fic (laughs).
Wook: Yeah and for me it's not vitally necessary. What I find a lot of the time is that sex becomes a crutch. Its a cop out for building a really believable romance, a lot of authors will just toss in a sex scene and that is supposed to make you buy the romance and I ship a lot of rivalry pairings, Harry/draco and that sort of thing, and for me throwing in a sex scene doesn't make it believable. You know, otherwise that's just hate sex. For me I don’t necessarily need it and some of the times it actually just completely throws me out of the fic and ruins my enjoyment of it.
starduchess: Something that bugs me in fics, it seems like a lot of the times sex is used as a cover for bad writing. And so when there is lack of content have them give a blowjob and that suddenly makes it ok and to me it just feels really worthless if there not enough story there.
tripperfunster: I agree. I tend to also ship either the rivalry pairings or the pairings where the people have a lot of work to go through before they could actually believably be together. And whenever they get together too quickly, I mean again I don't mind if it's an established relationship fic, but for me I'm much more of a first time, I wanna see how it builds, I wanna see how they get to the point they can have that relationship and have it be believable and I totally agree with wook in that if they get together too quickly or if they don't even address the things that have kept them apart it's a back button for me for sure.
Wook: And I even find that with the friendship pairings as well. Like Seamus/Dean how do you get them from being best friends since they were 11 to suddenly having sex. You have to have something in there to switch it and I guess I would sort of buy it if it was a random pairing like if two people that have never met and have no previous components or relationships, I guess I can kind of see that as a way of getting them together, I mean I do know people that started a one night stand and now they've been married for ten years. So I can see that with perfect strangers but if there is some sort of relationship in canon I want a reason why they are changing their relationship in canon.
tripperfunster: I was going to say one of my favourite tropes, speaking of sex, is either the like the 'sex or die' or 'the aliens made them do it' or the 'sex pollen' or whatever, it is sometimes fun to have a fic where the two people that don't get along are forced to, or a forced marriage or whatever, sometimes it's great when the sex is at the beginning but under duress and then, you know they find a way to work out the differences that they have and generally in most of those fics there is some sort of attraction to begin with and they never admit it cause they don’t get along but it's kind of a fun way to do that backward, in that the fic often starts out with them having sex but they have to kind of work out all those details later.
starduchess: Again that's about plot, that's about reason.
tripperfunster: Oh absolutely there needs to be a reason for it, for sure. I mean there still has to be, I'm not a big fan of whatever PWP formula or whatever, not that I never read them. But it doesn't, you know what I mean, I'm not a virgin I can just go have sex if that's all i'm interested reading or looking at, I'm much more interested in a plot or the dynamics of a relationship than I am in A goes into B.
fiona_fawkes: Something that kind of get round my head lately is, I'm a big proponent of gay rights through (inadible) and I am in a gay relationship myself and I dont not so much (inudibile) make changes or change legislation I want it to be normal, normal people who happen to be hooked up with people of the same gender in the story. And so for me what got me going on hpslashnotsmut, it seemed to be that people were so obsessed with slash with sex, it’s like people were forgetting that gay characters had lives and gay people have lives that revolved around things other than what they do with their genitals and so for me it was a big (inaudible) to encourage people to sort out the rest of the story and not just focus on gay people are different because they have sex with different things.
Wook: Well especially cause that is a harmful stereotype of the LGBT community, is that they are all just out there poking their dicks into whatever they can get. I mean to put it bluntly right. I mean that’s one of the things that's used that's thrown in their face everytime they want to legislate anything they immediate are like, well they just a bunch of horny people.
fiona_fawkes: Perverts yeah.
Wook: Yeah they are going to get whatever they can, so I think you make a really great valid point Fiona. Which kind of actually launches us into the next discussion point. Gen vs. Gen. do you think there is a lot of communication or lack of interpretation for a gen fic where there is no romantic pairing, vs a gen rated fic where there is a romantic pairing?
fiona_fawkes: For me there is no real confusion about that. I think .. (inaudible). Harry/Ron and it's rated G it's still slash, you know just because they may just hold hands and that's fine. Whereas if you had characters in your headers Harry, Ron then I automatic usually assume that it's a regular gen fic and there's no romance. I never had a problem between the two. And I figure... ( inaudile) and we thought about how do you rate something, how do you classify something and doing that for posting things online. But I'm betting that a lot of lurker and consumers in fandom that don't outside of the one place where they go and find fanfiction, they don't get involved in the community at all, I'm thinking a lot of them don't understand the difference. I would assume, I mean when I first heard about slash I thought it was like horror movie stuff. Cause to be slasher fic is like, you know like Friday 13th or something, and it certainly took me a while to navigate you know, pairing vs gen, I mean there is still stuff where i'm like Alpha, Omega, Delta what? Just a lot of sorority guys?
Wook: (laughs) that would be gender-bending! Yeah and it's kind of funny, they had a Teen Wolf fanfic contest, and Teen Wolf is a pretty young fandom and people were like OMG they are letting you have slash on there? But how do you slash with a rating of like PG13? Umm well... its easy! And I saw this one... I call it pit baiting. Basically you put something say Derek and Stiles for some Sterek cause that is the THE pairingright? Where it's clearly they have one conversation where it's not really them hooking up. But they put it because they have an interaction so of course that has to be one of the things listed and people are slowly losing that convention that slash means relationship and comma means interaction.
tripperfunster: I have pretty sound slash goggles and um you know to me most of the actual canon books and movies that I consume are to be considered pre-slash. where the people are actually getting together but I can either see or manufacture my own tension there. I am very happy to create a lot of what can be considered pre-slash fic, it might be buddy fic or whatever which has generally has a lot of, depending on the fandom of course, a lot of what the canon interactions would be but I can see the budding romance myself because I want to see it. But yeah like you were saying a lot of people don't think of slash as being a lower rating.
fiona_fawkes: I had somebody leave me a comment on a fic I posted recently, and it was long drawn out maybe PG13 in the relationship aspect of it and when they got to the end they didn't hook up, they just said that that's not the step they are going to take right now. And one of the comments said I would have loved this fic if it would have been slash, and I was like where have you been for the last 40,000 words? (laughs)
tripperfunster: Of course , I think it might harken back to the old, I mean a lot people feel you are not gay if yo haven't had sex with a person of the same sex. Like, I have a friend who considers herself bi who has never actually hooked up with another woman and I've had people tell her well then you are not really bi. I knew I was straight long before I has sex with a guy. I knew whatever turned my crank was whatever I was interested in. But perhaps with slash or gay fiction or whatever its the same totally effed up perception, if you don’t actually do it it's not real. I mean I don’t know if people know this but you can actually have sex with someone of the same sex as you and not be gay! You can actually maybe decide that wasn't what you know it would be or maybe wasn’t something to engage in again, it doesn't actually make you anything. Where you put your dick or your genitas doesn’t define you as a person.
Wook: And then you get into the discussion of asexual vs aromantic. You can be asexual and have the greatest romance of all time, you can be aromantic and be out there having as much sex as you want. So...
fiona_fawkes:: These are two different things completely, I agree. Oh that’s a fandom right there, I didnt realize that was a kink until i got into the Sherlock fandom and suddenly asexuality became a common story component. So it was actually fabulous a few people started to deal with that, slash fic where one of the partners is asexual entirely.
Wook: yeah and I mean I am not comfortable entirely with it being sort of a kink but it is nice to see it in fic, and I mean I don't think, I back button if I see asexualility as a warning like I back button if I see slash as a warning because to me those are not things you should have to warn for, those are things...
tripperfunster: They are components of the story they are not a trigger.
Wook: Right?
starduchess: but then is that the artist or writer not understanding a tagging system so well? and confusing the two, which especially on AO3 maybe if you wrote something in particular or in search of a particular category that deal with asexuality they are confusing warnings with categories.
tripperfunster: There are a lot of people our there who also confuse, like people who complain about warnings and tags, who confuse trigger with something I don’t like or something , I've heard people complain oh you didn’t warn for Buttom!Snape. and I’m like that's not a warning that’s a preference and if you don't like it it's not going to send you into a spiral of that time you were Buttom!Snape, that’s just something you don't like. I mean it could just be people who are putting all the warnings in that are heading all the whining snivelers that don’t know the difference between a warning and a preference.
fiona_fawkes: Something along the line trying to present kink in a way that will get absolutely the most readers possible and trying not to offend anybody.
starduchess: So this goes back to the idea the content vs language in the headers. Like for some people the content of BDSM (inaudible) enthusiasm like yeah I wanna click on that. That's me by the way! (laughs)
Wook: Speaking off, building off of Fiona's comment of getting read. Do you think that sex is necessary in fandom to get better reviews?
fiona_fawkes: not necessarily to get better reviews but certainly to get more. Personally i would trad…e (inaudible)
Wook: Cause sometimes I think that people to get established, to have those people who subscribe to them on AO3, to friend them, to follow them, they do use sex to get noticed, and I've noticed what happens is they slowly start going more towards plot rather than sex. and they take a few more ricks.
tripperfunster: I don't think that's necessarily premeditated. Like I’m gonna write lots of sex and get followers and then I'm gonna do other stuff. I think there's only so many ways you can have sex, and it's quite a few ways but it's really eventually somewhat limited unless you are going to get really freaky. And after a while as an artist of a writer I think after a while, hopefully you are going to evolve hanker for something more. Myself excluded from that (laughs) but I can’t imagine someone would, I mean I've had people complain oh i don’t get a lot of reviews because i don’t do anything above a PG and I'm quite sure that that's valid. But I've looked at lots of filthy stuff that's definitely not worth reviewing and didn't. I'm probably less likely to review something that's just smut. I might read it and enjoy it but its doesn't to me trigger out that 'Oh my god you had him say that , or I never saw that plot twist coming', it's not much of a plot twist if it's just sex.
starduchess: With regards to authors, that are growing up in fandom and starting as more pornographic writer and then moving on to something less basic than that it probably authors growing up and getting more comfortable as a writer and a fan and they are they are going to explore more plots. Though by default for most people more plot is going to include a little bit less sex, not all fics cause there are some very fabulous 80K word fics out there that have 6-7 sex scenes in a row and are well thought out and plotted I think as you are getting better at writing and writing longer things. I do see the opposite too sometimes people start out and they are very shy and they've never written anything above a PG and eventually you know spread their wings and end up writing higher ratings which is kind of fun to see. You know there is a writer right now I quite like in the Avengers fandom and she's, you know you can hear her squealing second-hand embarrassment as she writing the sex, cause she's written lots and it's all very good but she's just now getting into higher rating and its funny to see her squirm and be excited about.
Wook: So we've been talking about sex, romance, do you think a hardcore BDSM fic can have romance? Do you think romance can have really super kinky sex?
fiona_fawkes: Yes to both. From a real life perspective, I live in a part-time BDSM relationship and I don’t find that aromantic at all. Just like anything else you can have it completely cold and heartless and simple gratification and therefore the sexual gratification (inaudible) or it can be extremely thought out and sensual and emotional.
starduchess: I definitely agree that BDSM can have romance and be super kinky.
tripperfunster: I just read and I am not, I mean I like fic, I guess I’m not really into the lifestyle in the BDSM. It’s just really not my thing, I like a little spanking and a little tying to the bed kind of thing but the whole major roleplaying and stuff doesn’t do it for me, whatever your milage may vary, but I did read a really interesting, I guess especially interesting for me cause I’m not really into that whole genre so much, was a really tender after care fic that was in the Avengers between Steve and Tony, of just how the dom, I guess there is something called dom drop where afterwards you feel a little bit guilty that you hurt this person that you love deeply and you feel even worse because you enjoyed it and helping the sub get back on their feet so to speak and it was a really interesting dynamic between the two, it was a whole bunch of emotions that hadn’t even occurred to me, because most of the fic I’d read was more like a, more little light play a little spanking because you’re such a naughty boy kind of thing. As opposed to full on ‘I like to give up all power and I like it held up over me and kind of stuff. So it was a, in fact I don’t think there was any sex in it, it was just all the after stuff, after feelings and after shocks and all that kind of stuff and it was incredibly tender and very emotional short little fic that really opened my eyes to all sorts of scenarios I hadn’t even imaged.
fiona_fawkes: Exactly, there is that opportunity for bonding time.
tripperfunster: Bonding with bondage.
Wook: (laughs) That should be a bumper sticker! Well and I received a fic in a fest that was BDSM but there was no sex in it and the person didn’t understand why I considered it BDSM, and I was like, but you have a very obvious dominant and slave relationship in the fic and so, I think you can have the sort of kinky relationship without having sex as well, and I think it’s good as long as it has some sort of component to it where it shows me the relationship. Again your milage may vary but I’m not into the sort of fic where one person is getting embarrassed and harassed and upset by the other person. I’m not into hate sex either, I’m not into sort of power dynamic a lot of the times. But I do think you can have a BDSM fic without the sex in it as well. And speaking into the differences between porn and romance, what about shmoop and romance? Is there a difference?
tripperfunster: I am personally, I’d like to give you all my hate in shmoopy fic. My personal hate is kittens. I happen to personally love aninals and I have a cat of my own which I quite like and again your milage may vary I’m not saying people shouldn’t write these things but if there is a kitten. Like if Draco gets a kitten, how many Draco kitten fics are out there? Like 50K? It’s not even that I think that draco couldn’t love a kitten, I just don’t care to read about Draco getting a kitten and I think sometimes it’s a cheap way of getting someone to be caring and sweet, like show the softer side of a guy. If any, like Spock gets a kitten, if Captain America gets a kitten, I don’t care to me that just has shmoop on it and it doesn’t interest me. And again I’m not judging people that it does interest but it doesn’t interest me at all. Ok I’m totally judging people that it interests. And all your hatemail to tripperfunster.
fiona_fawkes: (inaudible) with shmoop there is not much seriousness in the fic and for me that’s a turn off. Ok yeah the kitten stuff ok next. And I’m an angsty person anyway in what I like to read and I want that more depth of character that doesn’t have much shmoop in it. Not that I don’t like it every once in a while, there are some really good ones out there too. But I think they all have a lot more plot in there too.
Wook: For me shmoop, ok so you can hate all your hate mail to Wook77 instead. Shmoop to me has this mental component, I know it’s not true but when I see shmoop as a warning as thing listed on the tags on AO3 I immediately go this is going to be full of OOC. Because I read a lot of pairings like Derek Hale, would Derek Hale really go cuckoo for cocoa puffs over a kitten? No, you know. So a lot of the time shmoop has this OOC bracing for me. But I’ve read some really great shmoopy fics out there which are a lot more romantic than a lot of romance with sex. A lot of them are really well written romance that focuses on the romantic moments instead. So we’ve talked about differences between shmoop and romance, BDSM, porn, what are some of your favourite tropes and conversely what are some tropes that drive you guys nuts?
starduchess: Ok well I’m a huge fun of the hook up. And so a lot of what I read is going to be either the developing or the changing of the relationship or overcoming whatever differences existing and coupled with all that a lot of unresolved sexual tension and so to me I want to have all of that, the what if, the ambiguity, you don’t know if they’re going to hook up and actually it disappoints me a little bit when things become easy and so when, those people are going to write happy endings in fandom it seems, you are going to spend 30K dancing around each other and it will get to the end and it will all be lovely so when I get to an author that gets to the end and doesn’t I’m always jumping up and down and yes you leave almost unsatisfied but then you are there thinking about that story for the next day or two and wondering the what if. And that’s what got us into it in the first place watching a TV show or reading a book and wondering what happens next so when a fanfic author can do that to me, you know mad props to them.
Wook: Yeah I’ll add one that drives me nuts because I’ve kind of alluded to it... healing cock. Healing cock drives me nuts. I hate it. I dislike it so much. Words cannot tell you enough of how much that drives me nuts. It’s such an awful trope and yet it’s there all the time.
tripperfunster: Even when it’s literal, like I’ve read some hilarious and somewhat hot Snape/Sirious fic where one of them gets poisoned and has to be like semen all over that for the antidote.
Wook: Sex-or-Die is different than healing cock to me. Sex-or-die, it can be fun, it has to sort of be rompish for me to believe it. Like it it's this uber serious sex-or-die thing, I’m kind of going really? REALLY? when it’s like, you know...
tripperfunster: When I've been raped and only having sex with you will save me from my rape feeling.
Wook: Exactly I mean face gets applied to palm all the time, and you know i keep reading thinking surely this better. What back button, I’m going to keep reading. It's one of the few that drives me nuts.
tripperfunster: I think for me, well we all know about my hatred of kittens. I really do like kittens though, really a lot and puppies. I guess for me it's anything, I mean I love to read fic where the characters are really stretched, where they are pushed to the limits, where we can really learn a lot about their characters and it's a fine line and not a remotely fine line from going to that just out of character. Like, I don't like seeing people... the difference is, I love putting a character in a situations the might never be in and seeing how they react as opposed to make a character act in a way they would never act in. You know like Spock is going to be Spock whether he gets a kitten or finds a child or is stranded in an alien planet and is fuck-or die. And I love seeing Spock react to all those things but I guess a lot of the shmoopier stuff tends to, the people who are writing it I guess want a different Spock and again that's fine for them. If the characters aren't acting the way that they are supposed to act that is a major back buttoner for me. And it goes into the thing that you talked about earlier Wook, about people having s too early when they haven’t worked through their issues. I guess it just really boils down to bad writing and in my experience a lot of the fic that I don’t like is more that I've read some fics that have bad writing with those tropes and it's just turned me off the tropes. I know you put out a kid fic I probably wouldn't read it. I've read a couple kind of by mistake that weren't labelled properly or the summary sucked me in anyway and I enjoyed them . But I would say overall it's not a trope I enjoy, it's probably from being burned by some bad writing early on and reading those tropes. Things that tend to really thrill me are, I wouldn’t necessarily say like Faux Yay fic, but stories that people really have to overcome some major personality obstacles or some history they have between them that they've got to work out are more interesting to me and generally stories that have a lot of UST where the people are forced to work together. Either they are stranded on a planet together or they've been kidnapped together, or they are forced to be in close contact with each other and really work through this feeling of not getting along or not liking each other for whatever reason, are the types of stories that turn my crank.
Wook: I love accidental bonding fic by the way, like that is one of my favourite trope scenario things where like two people walk through a door and then suddenly they can’t get more than 10 feet away from one another, especially with like Derek/Styles or Harry /Draco. Gosh I wish I could remember the Harry/Draco fic that I read when I was first getting into fandom on Fanfiction. net and I am going to go back and look for cause it's like on everybody’s rec list. Where it literally they walk through a doorway and then they are bonded. I love accidental bonding. I think it gives a lot of shenanigans, it gives them a lot of stuff to work through and they are forced to work through it and they are forced to work through it because if you absolutely hate the person you can't get more than 5 feet away from then two people are going to go into a room and only one is going to come out.
tripperfunster: It's like with forced marriage especially in the Harry Potter when it's like all the purebloods have to get married immediately blah blah blah that kind of thing. Again any way you are forcing people that dont like each other to work together, to be together, to be stuck in a small, I don't know if you’ve ever read RaeWhit's Oubliette where Snape and Harry get basically stuck in this little cement cave together for 4-5 days and one of them is injured and they have to work through a whole bunch of stuff and just being stuck together, it's fantastic.
fiona_fawkes: yeah I like forced bonding or forced marriage. My favourite trope is hurt/comfort especially being forced into a hurt/comfort situation where one has to take care of the other and that's all they have and eventually they have to work or else they are just going to kill each other.
tripperfunster: Oh yes hurt/comfort is my favourite. But not a healing cock, not the healing cock.
Wook: Yeah I was gonna say Hurt/conform is more likely to turn into shmoop rather than romance so I approach hurt/comfort with a lot of predication where I walk into it going oh god suddenly because he's like nurse maid they are going to get together and it's just because I’ve read so many bad fics with that but there are some really great one's out that I’m really glad I clicked on the link anyway just so I could get a chance to read it.
I do have one sort of serious question to address for us and that is: Is romance different for femslash vs slash? It's a tough one isn't it?
fiona_fawkes: I don’t know, I read so little femslash and I feel like a really bad lesbian saying that.
tripperfunster: that's it your L card is being taken away.
fiona_fawkes: Yeah i guess..
Wook: I am invalidating your marriage.
fiona_fawkes: Good luck with that! Oh gosh I guess from the moments I read from femslash it just sounds like they want more and less sex and I don’t know in some respects I guess the male slash is the (inaudible)
Wook: Yeah I’m going through tumbler cause there was actually a really great post about femslash and sort of the journey a female hero makes vs a male hero and how in a female hero story it’s about much the heroine can endure, how much loss she can endure vs a male hero the story is about how much can he win, how much he can succeed.
tripperfunster: I haven’t read a lot of femslash but I mean.. I could see, and it sort of it begs to be badly written but a lot of times with men and cause most slash is written by women, be it femslash or male slash, that you somehow manage to help the men find their emotions without feminising them. I could see and again I haven’t read a lot of femslash, I do enjoy the art I haven’t part of it is not enough strong, I wasn't into Xena, I haven’t really been in a fandom with plenty of female characters that are strong and interesting, I would say actually Avengers has the most interesting strongest females and even they don’t have their own movies they don’t have their own backstories as much as all the male characters unfortunately. But I could see if I was to write it or draw it my goal would be make the women stronger and more manly in those typical ways where a lot time the slash tries to make the men more romantic and almost in some way more feminine and I could see like you just said in some ways how much the woman can endure how tough she can be vs a lot of times with a lot of slash its just more how into his, aware of his own emotions the male characters can. Sometimes just getting over yourself and realizing you love somebody, just getting in touch with your emotions. I don’t know if that's true I just was totally talking out of my ass.
Wook: That's ok, I mean if you are going to talk out of anywhere you should probably talk out of your ass.
tripperfunster: I have a pretty good ass it might as well speak up.
Wook: And yet a good author makes you not care. I guess the whole chat is summed up with: If you are a great author I don't care if there is sex or not, I don't care about some of the details of your story I'm just going to enjoy the hell out if it. In a way thats what it seems to be. I don't know if you guys would agree with that.
tripperfunster: I would totally agree, although sometimes I would go out looking at summaries and stuff you know to get readers. Some of those things might make a difference to who even clicks at the story. But when it's well written absolutely.
Wook: And that is our metachat for Slashcast. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, feelings, thoughts anything on anything that we've talked about, feel free to leave us a comment on our website, on our LJ, our dreamwith, on tumblr or on twitter or anywhere else. thanks you so much for listening and thank you guys for participating.
Transcribed by imifos
Hosts: wook77, tripperfunster, fiona_fawkes starduchess
Wook: Hello and welcome to slashcast metachat, I’m wook77 and I’m sitting here with fiona_fawkes, tripperfunster, and starduchess to discuss sex and romance, sex versus romance and all that it entails. Why don’t you guys take a second and introduce yourselves for everybody?
tripperfunster: My name is tripperfunster and I am primarily an artist and sometimes writer in a few different fandoms. I started out in Harry Potter fandom, mostly as a Snarry shipper but have spread my wings to Star Trek and Grimm and Phineas and Ferb and at the moment primarily obsessed with the Avengers.
fiona_fawkes: I’m fiona_fawkes and I am primarily reader, reccer little bit of a community writer. Currently I am involved in Sherlock fandom, little bit of dabbling in Merlin and my original start was way back in Harry Potter. And back there I moderated the community hpslashnotsmut.
starduchess: Hi I’m starduchess, I am mostly a writer and reader and sometimes do beta work as well. Started off a long time ago with the Legend of Zelda in different web rings and that led to fanfiction.net where I found a few the other things I liked especially Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets and Voltron Golion which I loved as a kid and then from there into Harry Potter which is where I am now.
Wook: Ok. So Fiona mention hpslashnotsmut which is one on my favourite communities ever. So lets launch based on that into our discussion. Is sex necessary for you to enjoy a piece of fiction or a piece of artwork?
fiona_fawkes: That’s a pretty easy answer for me, I’m gonna say no. It’s a nice additive in some cases but in no way am I going to read or not read something based on whether there is explicit content.
starduchess: I’d agree that, I can’t say that’s not a yes or no answer for me. I don’t necessarily need to have it all fic and there is a lot of great stories that zip so there’s no sex whatsoever Im very fine with Gen fic. And then on the other hand if it’s a very romantic story and you get to the end and there’s not even a sign of sex at all you are just sort of left a little disappointed. Even if it’s not explicit it would a sighting. And writing in some respects romance is eventually leading to the sex and that’s why you have romance. So if it’s not even a possibility I think it’s a little bit of a let down to people.
tripperfunster: I would say for me, I do read some Gen fic but mostly when it’s either an author that I know and love or it’s been recced by somebody that I know and love. For me I’m more interested in the relationships and generally the sexual relationships, though I don’t necessarily need the sex in the fic, I need more of the promise of sex, the unresolved sexual tension, the budding romance of getting over the obstacles that stand between them and getting together. And again it’s always a little disappointing when it fades to black but it’s still acceptable. For my fic (laughs).
Wook: Yeah and for me it's not vitally necessary. What I find a lot of the time is that sex becomes a crutch. Its a cop out for building a really believable romance, a lot of authors will just toss in a sex scene and that is supposed to make you buy the romance and I ship a lot of rivalry pairings, Harry/draco and that sort of thing, and for me throwing in a sex scene doesn't make it believable. You know, otherwise that's just hate sex. For me I don’t necessarily need it and some of the times it actually just completely throws me out of the fic and ruins my enjoyment of it.
starduchess: Something that bugs me in fics, it seems like a lot of the times sex is used as a cover for bad writing. And so when there is lack of content have them give a blowjob and that suddenly makes it ok and to me it just feels really worthless if there not enough story there.
tripperfunster: I agree. I tend to also ship either the rivalry pairings or the pairings where the people have a lot of work to go through before they could actually believably be together. And whenever they get together too quickly, I mean again I don't mind if it's an established relationship fic, but for me I'm much more of a first time, I wanna see how it builds, I wanna see how they get to the point they can have that relationship and have it be believable and I totally agree with wook in that if they get together too quickly or if they don't even address the things that have kept them apart it's a back button for me for sure.
Wook: And I even find that with the friendship pairings as well. Like Seamus/Dean how do you get them from being best friends since they were 11 to suddenly having sex. You have to have something in there to switch it and I guess I would sort of buy it if it was a random pairing like if two people that have never met and have no previous components or relationships, I guess I can kind of see that as a way of getting them together, I mean I do know people that started a one night stand and now they've been married for ten years. So I can see that with perfect strangers but if there is some sort of relationship in canon I want a reason why they are changing their relationship in canon.
tripperfunster: I was going to say one of my favourite tropes, speaking of sex, is either the like the 'sex or die' or 'the aliens made them do it' or the 'sex pollen' or whatever, it is sometimes fun to have a fic where the two people that don't get along are forced to, or a forced marriage or whatever, sometimes it's great when the sex is at the beginning but under duress and then, you know they find a way to work out the differences that they have and generally in most of those fics there is some sort of attraction to begin with and they never admit it cause they don’t get along but it's kind of a fun way to do that backward, in that the fic often starts out with them having sex but they have to kind of work out all those details later.
starduchess: Again that's about plot, that's about reason.
tripperfunster: Oh absolutely there needs to be a reason for it, for sure. I mean there still has to be, I'm not a big fan of whatever PWP formula or whatever, not that I never read them. But it doesn't, you know what I mean, I'm not a virgin I can just go have sex if that's all i'm interested reading or looking at, I'm much more interested in a plot or the dynamics of a relationship than I am in A goes into B.
fiona_fawkes: Something that kind of get round my head lately is, I'm a big proponent of gay rights through (inadible) and I am in a gay relationship myself and I dont not so much (inudibile) make changes or change legislation I want it to be normal, normal people who happen to be hooked up with people of the same gender in the story. And so for me what got me going on hpslashnotsmut, it seemed to be that people were so obsessed with slash with sex, it’s like people were forgetting that gay characters had lives and gay people have lives that revolved around things other than what they do with their genitals and so for me it was a big (inaudible) to encourage people to sort out the rest of the story and not just focus on gay people are different because they have sex with different things.
Wook: Well especially cause that is a harmful stereotype of the LGBT community, is that they are all just out there poking their dicks into whatever they can get. I mean to put it bluntly right. I mean that’s one of the things that's used that's thrown in their face everytime they want to legislate anything they immediate are like, well they just a bunch of horny people.
fiona_fawkes: Perverts yeah.
Wook: Yeah they are going to get whatever they can, so I think you make a really great valid point Fiona. Which kind of actually launches us into the next discussion point. Gen vs. Gen. do you think there is a lot of communication or lack of interpretation for a gen fic where there is no romantic pairing, vs a gen rated fic where there is a romantic pairing?
fiona_fawkes: For me there is no real confusion about that. I think .. (inaudible). Harry/Ron and it's rated G it's still slash, you know just because they may just hold hands and that's fine. Whereas if you had characters in your headers Harry, Ron then I automatic usually assume that it's a regular gen fic and there's no romance. I never had a problem between the two. And I figure... ( inaudile) and we thought about how do you rate something, how do you classify something and doing that for posting things online. But I'm betting that a lot of lurker and consumers in fandom that don't outside of the one place where they go and find fanfiction, they don't get involved in the community at all, I'm thinking a lot of them don't understand the difference. I would assume, I mean when I first heard about slash I thought it was like horror movie stuff. Cause to be slasher fic is like, you know like Friday 13th or something, and it certainly took me a while to navigate you know, pairing vs gen, I mean there is still stuff where i'm like Alpha, Omega, Delta what? Just a lot of sorority guys?
Wook: (laughs) that would be gender-bending! Yeah and it's kind of funny, they had a Teen Wolf fanfic contest, and Teen Wolf is a pretty young fandom and people were like OMG they are letting you have slash on there? But how do you slash with a rating of like PG13? Umm well... its easy! And I saw this one... I call it pit baiting. Basically you put something say Derek and Stiles for some Sterek cause that is the THE pairingright? Where it's clearly they have one conversation where it's not really them hooking up. But they put it because they have an interaction so of course that has to be one of the things listed and people are slowly losing that convention that slash means relationship and comma means interaction.
tripperfunster: I have pretty sound slash goggles and um you know to me most of the actual canon books and movies that I consume are to be considered pre-slash. where the people are actually getting together but I can either see or manufacture my own tension there. I am very happy to create a lot of what can be considered pre-slash fic, it might be buddy fic or whatever which has generally has a lot of, depending on the fandom of course, a lot of what the canon interactions would be but I can see the budding romance myself because I want to see it. But yeah like you were saying a lot of people don't think of slash as being a lower rating.
fiona_fawkes: I had somebody leave me a comment on a fic I posted recently, and it was long drawn out maybe PG13 in the relationship aspect of it and when they got to the end they didn't hook up, they just said that that's not the step they are going to take right now. And one of the comments said I would have loved this fic if it would have been slash, and I was like where have you been for the last 40,000 words? (laughs)
tripperfunster: Of course , I think it might harken back to the old, I mean a lot people feel you are not gay if yo haven't had sex with a person of the same sex. Like, I have a friend who considers herself bi who has never actually hooked up with another woman and I've had people tell her well then you are not really bi. I knew I was straight long before I has sex with a guy. I knew whatever turned my crank was whatever I was interested in. But perhaps with slash or gay fiction or whatever its the same totally effed up perception, if you don’t actually do it it's not real. I mean I don’t know if people know this but you can actually have sex with someone of the same sex as you and not be gay! You can actually maybe decide that wasn't what you know it would be or maybe wasn’t something to engage in again, it doesn't actually make you anything. Where you put your dick or your genitas doesn’t define you as a person.
Wook: And then you get into the discussion of asexual vs aromantic. You can be asexual and have the greatest romance of all time, you can be aromantic and be out there having as much sex as you want. So...
fiona_fawkes:: These are two different things completely, I agree. Oh that’s a fandom right there, I didnt realize that was a kink until i got into the Sherlock fandom and suddenly asexuality became a common story component. So it was actually fabulous a few people started to deal with that, slash fic where one of the partners is asexual entirely.
Wook: yeah and I mean I am not comfortable entirely with it being sort of a kink but it is nice to see it in fic, and I mean I don't think, I back button if I see asexualility as a warning like I back button if I see slash as a warning because to me those are not things you should have to warn for, those are things...
tripperfunster: They are components of the story they are not a trigger.
Wook: Right?
starduchess: but then is that the artist or writer not understanding a tagging system so well? and confusing the two, which especially on AO3 maybe if you wrote something in particular or in search of a particular category that deal with asexuality they are confusing warnings with categories.
tripperfunster: There are a lot of people our there who also confuse, like people who complain about warnings and tags, who confuse trigger with something I don’t like or something , I've heard people complain oh you didn’t warn for Buttom!Snape. and I’m like that's not a warning that’s a preference and if you don't like it it's not going to send you into a spiral of that time you were Buttom!Snape, that’s just something you don't like. I mean it could just be people who are putting all the warnings in that are heading all the whining snivelers that don’t know the difference between a warning and a preference.
fiona_fawkes: Something along the line trying to present kink in a way that will get absolutely the most readers possible and trying not to offend anybody.
starduchess: So this goes back to the idea the content vs language in the headers. Like for some people the content of BDSM (inaudible) enthusiasm like yeah I wanna click on that. That's me by the way! (laughs)
Wook: Speaking off, building off of Fiona's comment of getting read. Do you think that sex is necessary in fandom to get better reviews?
fiona_fawkes: not necessarily to get better reviews but certainly to get more. Personally i would trad…e (inaudible)
Wook: Cause sometimes I think that people to get established, to have those people who subscribe to them on AO3, to friend them, to follow them, they do use sex to get noticed, and I've noticed what happens is they slowly start going more towards plot rather than sex. and they take a few more ricks.
tripperfunster: I don't think that's necessarily premeditated. Like I’m gonna write lots of sex and get followers and then I'm gonna do other stuff. I think there's only so many ways you can have sex, and it's quite a few ways but it's really eventually somewhat limited unless you are going to get really freaky. And after a while as an artist of a writer I think after a while, hopefully you are going to evolve hanker for something more. Myself excluded from that (laughs) but I can’t imagine someone would, I mean I've had people complain oh i don’t get a lot of reviews because i don’t do anything above a PG and I'm quite sure that that's valid. But I've looked at lots of filthy stuff that's definitely not worth reviewing and didn't. I'm probably less likely to review something that's just smut. I might read it and enjoy it but its doesn't to me trigger out that 'Oh my god you had him say that , or I never saw that plot twist coming', it's not much of a plot twist if it's just sex.
starduchess: With regards to authors, that are growing up in fandom and starting as more pornographic writer and then moving on to something less basic than that it probably authors growing up and getting more comfortable as a writer and a fan and they are they are going to explore more plots. Though by default for most people more plot is going to include a little bit less sex, not all fics cause there are some very fabulous 80K word fics out there that have 6-7 sex scenes in a row and are well thought out and plotted I think as you are getting better at writing and writing longer things. I do see the opposite too sometimes people start out and they are very shy and they've never written anything above a PG and eventually you know spread their wings and end up writing higher ratings which is kind of fun to see. You know there is a writer right now I quite like in the Avengers fandom and she's, you know you can hear her squealing second-hand embarrassment as she writing the sex, cause she's written lots and it's all very good but she's just now getting into higher rating and its funny to see her squirm and be excited about.
Wook: So we've been talking about sex, romance, do you think a hardcore BDSM fic can have romance? Do you think romance can have really super kinky sex?
fiona_fawkes: Yes to both. From a real life perspective, I live in a part-time BDSM relationship and I don’t find that aromantic at all. Just like anything else you can have it completely cold and heartless and simple gratification and therefore the sexual gratification (inaudible) or it can be extremely thought out and sensual and emotional.
starduchess: I definitely agree that BDSM can have romance and be super kinky.
tripperfunster: I just read and I am not, I mean I like fic, I guess I’m not really into the lifestyle in the BDSM. It’s just really not my thing, I like a little spanking and a little tying to the bed kind of thing but the whole major roleplaying and stuff doesn’t do it for me, whatever your milage may vary, but I did read a really interesting, I guess especially interesting for me cause I’m not really into that whole genre so much, was a really tender after care fic that was in the Avengers between Steve and Tony, of just how the dom, I guess there is something called dom drop where afterwards you feel a little bit guilty that you hurt this person that you love deeply and you feel even worse because you enjoyed it and helping the sub get back on their feet so to speak and it was a really interesting dynamic between the two, it was a whole bunch of emotions that hadn’t even occurred to me, because most of the fic I’d read was more like a, more little light play a little spanking because you’re such a naughty boy kind of thing. As opposed to full on ‘I like to give up all power and I like it held up over me and kind of stuff. So it was a, in fact I don’t think there was any sex in it, it was just all the after stuff, after feelings and after shocks and all that kind of stuff and it was incredibly tender and very emotional short little fic that really opened my eyes to all sorts of scenarios I hadn’t even imaged.
fiona_fawkes: Exactly, there is that opportunity for bonding time.
tripperfunster: Bonding with bondage.
Wook: (laughs) That should be a bumper sticker! Well and I received a fic in a fest that was BDSM but there was no sex in it and the person didn’t understand why I considered it BDSM, and I was like, but you have a very obvious dominant and slave relationship in the fic and so, I think you can have the sort of kinky relationship without having sex as well, and I think it’s good as long as it has some sort of component to it where it shows me the relationship. Again your milage may vary but I’m not into the sort of fic where one person is getting embarrassed and harassed and upset by the other person. I’m not into hate sex either, I’m not into sort of power dynamic a lot of the times. But I do think you can have a BDSM fic without the sex in it as well. And speaking into the differences between porn and romance, what about shmoop and romance? Is there a difference?
tripperfunster: I am personally, I’d like to give you all my hate in shmoopy fic. My personal hate is kittens. I happen to personally love aninals and I have a cat of my own which I quite like and again your milage may vary I’m not saying people shouldn’t write these things but if there is a kitten. Like if Draco gets a kitten, how many Draco kitten fics are out there? Like 50K? It’s not even that I think that draco couldn’t love a kitten, I just don’t care to read about Draco getting a kitten and I think sometimes it’s a cheap way of getting someone to be caring and sweet, like show the softer side of a guy. If any, like Spock gets a kitten, if Captain America gets a kitten, I don’t care to me that just has shmoop on it and it doesn’t interest me. And again I’m not judging people that it does interest but it doesn’t interest me at all. Ok I’m totally judging people that it interests. And all your hatemail to tripperfunster.
fiona_fawkes: (inaudible) with shmoop there is not much seriousness in the fic and for me that’s a turn off. Ok yeah the kitten stuff ok next. And I’m an angsty person anyway in what I like to read and I want that more depth of character that doesn’t have much shmoop in it. Not that I don’t like it every once in a while, there are some really good ones out there too. But I think they all have a lot more plot in there too.
Wook: For me shmoop, ok so you can hate all your hate mail to Wook77 instead. Shmoop to me has this mental component, I know it’s not true but when I see shmoop as a warning as thing listed on the tags on AO3 I immediately go this is going to be full of OOC. Because I read a lot of pairings like Derek Hale, would Derek Hale really go cuckoo for cocoa puffs over a kitten? No, you know. So a lot of the time shmoop has this OOC bracing for me. But I’ve read some really great shmoopy fics out there which are a lot more romantic than a lot of romance with sex. A lot of them are really well written romance that focuses on the romantic moments instead. So we’ve talked about differences between shmoop and romance, BDSM, porn, what are some of your favourite tropes and conversely what are some tropes that drive you guys nuts?
starduchess: Ok well I’m a huge fun of the hook up. And so a lot of what I read is going to be either the developing or the changing of the relationship or overcoming whatever differences existing and coupled with all that a lot of unresolved sexual tension and so to me I want to have all of that, the what if, the ambiguity, you don’t know if they’re going to hook up and actually it disappoints me a little bit when things become easy and so when, those people are going to write happy endings in fandom it seems, you are going to spend 30K dancing around each other and it will get to the end and it will all be lovely so when I get to an author that gets to the end and doesn’t I’m always jumping up and down and yes you leave almost unsatisfied but then you are there thinking about that story for the next day or two and wondering the what if. And that’s what got us into it in the first place watching a TV show or reading a book and wondering what happens next so when a fanfic author can do that to me, you know mad props to them.
Wook: Yeah I’ll add one that drives me nuts because I’ve kind of alluded to it... healing cock. Healing cock drives me nuts. I hate it. I dislike it so much. Words cannot tell you enough of how much that drives me nuts. It’s such an awful trope and yet it’s there all the time.
tripperfunster: Even when it’s literal, like I’ve read some hilarious and somewhat hot Snape/Sirious fic where one of them gets poisoned and has to be like semen all over that for the antidote.
Wook: Sex-or-Die is different than healing cock to me. Sex-or-die, it can be fun, it has to sort of be rompish for me to believe it. Like it it's this uber serious sex-or-die thing, I’m kind of going really? REALLY? when it’s like, you know...
tripperfunster: When I've been raped and only having sex with you will save me from my rape feeling.
Wook: Exactly I mean face gets applied to palm all the time, and you know i keep reading thinking surely this better. What back button, I’m going to keep reading. It's one of the few that drives me nuts.
tripperfunster: I think for me, well we all know about my hatred of kittens. I really do like kittens though, really a lot and puppies. I guess for me it's anything, I mean I love to read fic where the characters are really stretched, where they are pushed to the limits, where we can really learn a lot about their characters and it's a fine line and not a remotely fine line from going to that just out of character. Like, I don't like seeing people... the difference is, I love putting a character in a situations the might never be in and seeing how they react as opposed to make a character act in a way they would never act in. You know like Spock is going to be Spock whether he gets a kitten or finds a child or is stranded in an alien planet and is fuck-or die. And I love seeing Spock react to all those things but I guess a lot of the shmoopier stuff tends to, the people who are writing it I guess want a different Spock and again that's fine for them. If the characters aren't acting the way that they are supposed to act that is a major back buttoner for me. And it goes into the thing that you talked about earlier Wook, about people having s too early when they haven’t worked through their issues. I guess it just really boils down to bad writing and in my experience a lot of the fic that I don’t like is more that I've read some fics that have bad writing with those tropes and it's just turned me off the tropes. I know you put out a kid fic I probably wouldn't read it. I've read a couple kind of by mistake that weren't labelled properly or the summary sucked me in anyway and I enjoyed them . But I would say overall it's not a trope I enjoy, it's probably from being burned by some bad writing early on and reading those tropes. Things that tend to really thrill me are, I wouldn’t necessarily say like Faux Yay fic, but stories that people really have to overcome some major personality obstacles or some history they have between them that they've got to work out are more interesting to me and generally stories that have a lot of UST where the people are forced to work together. Either they are stranded on a planet together or they've been kidnapped together, or they are forced to be in close contact with each other and really work through this feeling of not getting along or not liking each other for whatever reason, are the types of stories that turn my crank.
Wook: I love accidental bonding fic by the way, like that is one of my favourite trope scenario things where like two people walk through a door and then suddenly they can’t get more than 10 feet away from one another, especially with like Derek/Styles or Harry /Draco. Gosh I wish I could remember the Harry/Draco fic that I read when I was first getting into fandom on Fanfiction. net and I am going to go back and look for cause it's like on everybody’s rec list. Where it literally they walk through a doorway and then they are bonded. I love accidental bonding. I think it gives a lot of shenanigans, it gives them a lot of stuff to work through and they are forced to work through it and they are forced to work through it because if you absolutely hate the person you can't get more than 5 feet away from then two people are going to go into a room and only one is going to come out.
tripperfunster: It's like with forced marriage especially in the Harry Potter when it's like all the purebloods have to get married immediately blah blah blah that kind of thing. Again any way you are forcing people that dont like each other to work together, to be together, to be stuck in a small, I don't know if you’ve ever read RaeWhit's Oubliette where Snape and Harry get basically stuck in this little cement cave together for 4-5 days and one of them is injured and they have to work through a whole bunch of stuff and just being stuck together, it's fantastic.
fiona_fawkes: yeah I like forced bonding or forced marriage. My favourite trope is hurt/comfort especially being forced into a hurt/comfort situation where one has to take care of the other and that's all they have and eventually they have to work or else they are just going to kill each other.
tripperfunster: Oh yes hurt/comfort is my favourite. But not a healing cock, not the healing cock.
Wook: Yeah I was gonna say Hurt/conform is more likely to turn into shmoop rather than romance so I approach hurt/comfort with a lot of predication where I walk into it going oh god suddenly because he's like nurse maid they are going to get together and it's just because I’ve read so many bad fics with that but there are some really great one's out that I’m really glad I clicked on the link anyway just so I could get a chance to read it.
I do have one sort of serious question to address for us and that is: Is romance different for femslash vs slash? It's a tough one isn't it?
fiona_fawkes: I don’t know, I read so little femslash and I feel like a really bad lesbian saying that.
tripperfunster: that's it your L card is being taken away.
fiona_fawkes: Yeah i guess..
Wook: I am invalidating your marriage.
fiona_fawkes: Good luck with that! Oh gosh I guess from the moments I read from femslash it just sounds like they want more and less sex and I don’t know in some respects I guess the male slash is the (inaudible)
Wook: Yeah I’m going through tumbler cause there was actually a really great post about femslash and sort of the journey a female hero makes vs a male hero and how in a female hero story it’s about much the heroine can endure, how much loss she can endure vs a male hero the story is about how much can he win, how much he can succeed.
tripperfunster: I haven’t read a lot of femslash but I mean.. I could see, and it sort of it begs to be badly written but a lot of times with men and cause most slash is written by women, be it femslash or male slash, that you somehow manage to help the men find their emotions without feminising them. I could see and again I haven’t read a lot of femslash, I do enjoy the art I haven’t part of it is not enough strong, I wasn't into Xena, I haven’t really been in a fandom with plenty of female characters that are strong and interesting, I would say actually Avengers has the most interesting strongest females and even they don’t have their own movies they don’t have their own backstories as much as all the male characters unfortunately. But I could see if I was to write it or draw it my goal would be make the women stronger and more manly in those typical ways where a lot time the slash tries to make the men more romantic and almost in some way more feminine and I could see like you just said in some ways how much the woman can endure how tough she can be vs a lot of times with a lot of slash its just more how into his, aware of his own emotions the male characters can. Sometimes just getting over yourself and realizing you love somebody, just getting in touch with your emotions. I don’t know if that's true I just was totally talking out of my ass.
Wook: That's ok, I mean if you are going to talk out of anywhere you should probably talk out of your ass.
tripperfunster: I have a pretty good ass it might as well speak up.
Wook: And yet a good author makes you not care. I guess the whole chat is summed up with: If you are a great author I don't care if there is sex or not, I don't care about some of the details of your story I'm just going to enjoy the hell out if it. In a way thats what it seems to be. I don't know if you guys would agree with that.
tripperfunster: I would totally agree, although sometimes I would go out looking at summaries and stuff you know to get readers. Some of those things might make a difference to who even clicks at the story. But when it's well written absolutely.
Wook: And that is our metachat for Slashcast. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, feelings, thoughts anything on anything that we've talked about, feel free to leave us a comment on our website, on our LJ, our dreamwith, on tumblr or on twitter or anywhere else. thanks you so much for listening and thank you guys for participating.
Transcribed by imifos