Het and slash

[lobelia321]

Oh, I'm on a philosophical roll this morning.



These musings were prompted by cinzia's story De Amore but go back to struggles over het that go back all the way to August (*winks at viva_gloria*).

I'm inserting some het into a slash fic. And in doing that, I realised that het does something to slash. It's not like het in the mainstream. When you insert het into slash, it does something to the slash. Everything shifts slightly, everything changes footing.

I was reminded of this when I watched the ext-DVD and Viggo says: "Cate or Liv would come on set and a different quality, a different energy would enter the set."

This is what I found when I wrote my het: the het energises the slash in particular ways. Originally, I just inserted the het in a "straight" way but you can't do "straight" in slash. I found I needed to slashify the het. I needed to turn the het around and look at it from all sides. It forced me really to think about what the het in fic means, and what het in general means.

What Cinzia does so brilliantly in "De Amore", is to do just that. When Karl wants to be filled, that turns around all of those tedious mainstream assumptions about it being women who need to be filled and who are The Void. It's a very radical fic, in terms of what it does to the straight mainstream but also in what it does to slash.

Comments

[cupiscent.livejournal.com]

Obviously I just wasn't paying attention back when you first wrote this, or I would have commented then. Because het/slash and everything related is a subject guaranteed to animate me.

I love that comment by Viggo. Because I do believe that the inclusion of women alters the atmosphere, and it's something I've been really missing in Lotrips. (Though at least part of the Cate/Liv thing might, I wonder, be the elf thing?) I always do my best to include women in my stories, to maintain realism and to keep that female energy present. I certainly think male-only pieces have a different sort of edge.

As for slashifying the het... I think, as in just about everything, it depends on your aim for the piece. The focus determines how the elements are used, as it were. If it is, in fact, just a slash fic with some het content, then yes, the het's going to be tinged by the overall slash aspect. And in the vast majority of cases, het is used 'en route' to slash, as it were. Certainly the case in the fics where I've included het content. Although, in my usual contrary fashion, I'm plotting a slash en route to het fic. The atmosphere in that, I expect, will possible be very different overall, because of the direction. However, the focus is still mostly on the slash, so perhaps it will still have that element.

Um, where was I? Oh yes, slash and het atmospheres. At the risk of being lambasted as sexist and crap, I'll go out on a limb and say that slash has a 'harder' edge, and het a softer. The former is more sex and violence, the latter more romantic. That said, I think all my fic has uses a softer lense, whether because of my background in a het fandom, or just personal preference. (Frankly, the mechanics of sex just bore me. *g* I'm all about the psychological and emotional.)

I had some grand point to round this out, but it seems to have evaporated. Damn brain.

In essence, I resist the drawing of hard lines between het and slash. A friend of mine in another fandom recently described all fics exploring a relationship as 'shipper fics. I really like that definition. All 'shipperfics, whether exploring het, slash or simply general friendship relationships, have similar elements. My major annoyance with Lotrips is that (in general) all relations other than slash are ignored by the fandom as major focus. We're really missing a lot of the beauty of variety. So, yes, I try not to think of myself as writing 'slash'. I'm just writing stories. Sometimes the stories have a major sex component, but I don't think the gender relations matter in that point.

Or maybe I'm just having myself on. I'm certainly rambling, so I'll shut up now. *g*

het and slash

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

This is all fantastically interesting, esp. your thoughts on the limits of Lotr fandom. As this is the only fandom I've ever been involved in, I suppose it just hadn't occurred to me that these fanonish conventions are *limits* because, as far as my own experience goes, that is simply *fandom* -- so it is extremely interesting to me and refreshing to find that this need not be so!

As for slashifying the het... I think, as in just about everything, it depends on your aim for the piece.
Yes, very interesting!!

Although, in my usual contrary fashion, I'm plotting a slash en route to het fic.
Omg. *dies*

Revives again (in that miraculous fashion, possible only in hyperbolic LJ-land...). I suppose, though, why I also like the slashifying of het is that I am generally resistant to the way het is written in mainstream -- which is why I was drawn to the slash to begin with! And I inserting het into m/m (which is what I've done but it has not been posted) made me think about all this to begin with, and made me think about what het means *in general*, out there in the world. And how that affects the intimate cocoon of any relationship as well.

The former is more sex and violence, the latter more romantic. That said, I think all my fic has uses a softer lense
Hm. What I found when I first started reading m/m slash (and I've become so used to it now I barely notice it any longer) is how *feminised* the slashmen are. Not only the constant cooking and tea-making but also the emphasis on relationship stuff, the angst, the emotionalness -- wrapped up in some "hard" stuff like drinking beer and matey banter but that's just stuck in there to make it sexy for the female readers and give it that 'manly' edge.

Re: het and slash

[cupiscent.livejournal.com]

(This discussion is far more interesting than thesis. Besides, I'm waiting for my washing to be done...)

I suppose it just hadn't occurred to me that these fanonish conventions are *limits* because, as far as my own experience goes, that is simply *fandom*
I guess I've really been spoilt by X-Men being my first fandom. It's got *everything*. There's het romance fics, and slash fics (the Xavier/Magneto and Scott/Logan fics are *everywhere*) and even femme slash. But there's also friendship fics; I read an amazingly beautiful friendship fic featuring Wolverine and Iceman, and realised at the end that such a fic could never happen in Lotrips, because such a close friendship would just be assumed to be slashy, and that made me sad. But there's also action fics, which have no 'shipper qualities at all, but are still just as much fun.

In short, no fate but what we make. *g* Tell any story you wish, I say.

Back to the slashifying het... Remember there was that meme going around a while ago to fill out that survey and then it would tell you whether you were butch or femme or androgynous in the middle? I imagine there could be a very similar scale for the writing of sex. "Butch" sex scenes need not necessarily be slash, but probably tend to be, and likewise "femme" need not be het, but most het fits that description. (Probably because it's written for the sort of 'flowery' women who read paperback romances.)

Which segues nicely into the feminisation of men in slash. Hell yeah. It still bothers me sometimes, in the more blatant instances. Sometimes I really wonder where the things that I like about men - their obliviousness to certain things, their obsessions, their singular way of interacting - have gone.