lunabee34

I have a question.

A few days ago, I read the delightfully funny The Awful Truth by blade_girl. The rec in which I found the story states: I rec this one with a caveat to slash fans - as a fan of both slash and gen, I must tell you this story contains apparently slashy elements, but is ultimately gen (regardless of the author's notes); and may prove unsatisfying to a slasher. That being said, I find it a plausible, positive, and touching take on the characters and their friendship.) I found this description intriguing and it was pretty much the impetus for me reading the story. The notes for the story itself state: A slash story AND a gen story at the same time. I can’t explain that without giving away the ending, so I ask you to read regardless of your preference. Both the writer of this story and at least one reader of the story (and I assume probably more) seem to think that labeling this fic as slash is problematic.

So my question is the following: what makes a slash fic?

( SPOILERS for The Awful Truth )

I am a little disappointed.

And a little annoyed.

In no small part at myself, but also at fandom at large.

And so I come to you, dear friends who are wiser than me, for advice.

I dropped the ball on the last sga_talk discussion. This whole new assistant professor, teaching five classes, QEP, SACS, why yes you have to finish your Ph.D. right now or we won't give you tenure gig is a little exhausting. And stressing. And I forgot to do a reminder post for this last discussion. And I forgot to drum up participation once I saw that I was, again, the only commenter. And I forgot to assign a new piece to read for the 1st of September.

So, yes. Culpability, I own you.

But here's the thing, y'all. Here's the thing.

I think sga_talk is awesome for a lot of reasons. I love to write. I am a writer. I become a better writer when I talk with other people about writing. And I like having a structured place to do this. I love to read. I am a reader. I have made reading and nattering on about it to other people my life's profession. I love literary analysis of fanfic. I also love reading outside of my comfort zone. I have so little time to hunt for fic now that I pretty much exclusively read the flist or large challenges like Big Bang. I find the good stuff through sga_talk that I would never find otherwise. I also like to meet people and I have met through sga_talk some really cool people with interesting ideas about SGA and writing and fandom. I think sga_talk is poised to be a vital segment of fandom.

And yet, it saddens me that I have to beg and grovel for participation in what other fans say over and over again that they want.

Believe me when I say that I understand there are obstacles to participating in a comm of this nature. RL is in the way; you have no time to read this week; you hate the featured pairing; you vowed never to read amnesia fic again; you're too wrapped up in Big Bang. All valid reasons not to participate.

But a significant portion of fandom says over and over again that it wants constructive criticism. A significant portion of fandom says over and over again that it thinks of fanfic as having the same kind of value and interest as published works and that it wants literary analysis of fannish works. And yet, in a comm with 69 members, I can count on only four other people besides myself and lyrstzha to regularly comment.

So what am I doing wrong? What am I not getting?

And while I am showing my ass, as we say in the South, let me also make this complaint. Why oh why is it that we fans criticize again and again the source material for giving short shrift to women and fanfic for doing the same; why is it that we lament the representation of women and of queer female relationships both in our source texts and in the fannish works we create but when it comes time to read and talk about femslash, everybody disappears? Even in its honeymoon phase when participation in sga_talk was at its highest, the femslash selections received the fewest comments. This makes me angry, particularly since there is an AWESOME and truly unique femslash fic sitting in sga_talk right now that no one but myself has commented on.

I am having a really hard time reconciling what I think I hear fandom say that it wants and needs and what fandom actually ends up doing.

So, help me, y'all. I think sga_talk can be an amazing community, but I don't know how to get it to that point. What can I do (besides, oh, getting my head out of my ass and doing my modly duties like I'm supposed to; *is embarrassed*)? What are your suggestions?

So, executrix posted the HANDOUT for the panel on the personal politics of slash that she and beanside moderated, and after I got over my, "OMG OMG OMG beanside! Who makes Jeffrey Dean Morgan do it with Chad Michael Murray! (It's the three names; they belong together)," I was all, "Oooooh, intriguing questions."

The one that caught my eye immediately was the following:

3. M/m slash and f/f slash: more similar than different, or more different than similar?

And BTW, I love how all of these questions are essentially unanswerable except in a very personal, subjective way.

So here's my personal and very subjective answer.

More different than similar. For me.

( Nekkid girls under the cut! )