 by snicks |
Is the next generation of "Star Trek" slashfic upon us?
The revamped Star Trek opened last weekend and shattered all Trek box-office records, thus breathing new life into what many considered a near-death franchise. Star Trek has given us many things over the years; hope for the future, gays as metaphors, Borg babes in tight catsuits, children driving starships, hedgehog cooks, George Takei, Vulcan babes in tight catsuits, Janeway's bun of steel, and Whoopi Goldberg ... wearing a giant blue plate on her head, but according to this newsweek.com article, it's also responsible for giving birth to what we now know as "slashfic". People being people, there has probably always been erotic fanfic, too, but it never had a name until the early 1970s, when Star Trek fans circulated zines postulating a romantic relationship between Captain Kirk and Spock. Soon enough, the writers and readers of the subgenre were referring to it by shorthand: Kirk/Spock was shortened to K/S or, simply, "slash," a term that now refers to any type of fanfic featuring a gay relationship. But who writes the majority of slash? You may be surprised by the answer! But probably not. "Surveys have found that the majority of K/S writers and consumers are heterosexual women". Another misconception is that slash is all about porn, which it's not: Most are primarily about the creation and maintenance of a romantic relationship. Members of the K/S community are surprisingly good at policing their own work for what they refer to as "the squick factor." Stories are often rated on a scale (G to NC-17) by the author at the very beginning so fans of strictly romantic K/S don't accidentally encounter jarring pornography. I have to admit that I've never read any slashfic, and if I was going to, I'm not sure it would be Trek-related (and if truth be told, the only Trek pairing I could definitely see happening is ... Janeway/Seven ... I mean, c'mon).
So what slashfic would I take a peek at? Hmm ... Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki Just kidding! Yes, even though Supernatural stars Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles both made it big on The 2009 AfterElton Hot 100, they play brothers on that show, so it would be obscene of me to picture them in any kind of ... situation. Right? Anyway ... with the hot new Kirk and Spock making hearts flutter, it's inevitable that Trek slash will be around for years to come, with a new generation of writers boldly going ... there. Do you read (or write) Trek slash, or any other slash? If not, what pairing would interest you enough to give it a try? Submitted by on Wed, 2009-05-13 15:02. |
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*raises hand* I admit it.
*raises hand* I admit it. I'm a huge slash fan, and I write it, too (not exceptionally well, perhaps).
There has been new Kirk/Spock fic popping up in the wake of the new movie, and some amusing reactions from the older fen. ("What is this author thinking, making Spock blush pink?!? Green blood, people!") I'm not in the Supernatural fandom, but there's scads of fic about Sam/Dean (Wincest) and about Jared/Jensen (J2).
When people venture into slash for the first time (or fanfiction at all), I just advise them to find someone with taste to recommend stories. There are some amazingly well written fics out there, but it's easy to be scared off by the horrible junk before you find it.
*waves* Hi! I have not seen
There are now "slash" novels
The "slash" fanfic phenomenon has moved into the print world; two of the novels recently affected by the Amazon censorship débacle were Transgressions and False Colors, the first books in a series of "M/M Romances" aimed at female readers. Difference being that these books have a historical setting rather than taking established characters from film or TV. (And, yes, Alex Beecroft is a woman.)
Thanks for the tip! I
Thanks for the tip! I should try it.
Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Slash on the high seas!
Oh my God, I must read this. I absolutely adore historical, seafaring stories (and slash). Sadly, I could never see the Aubrey/Maturin pairing (in the movie, yes - in the books, no) which is probably the most prevalent example.
I do read and write M/M slash fic, and I am a straight woman. There are all sorts of reasons I'm involved in it, ranging from it's fun to wanting to improve my writing skills to caring about the characters and wanting to explore them more than what little we get onscreen. And of course there's the hotness factor. I've never understood why love scenes presumably designed for straight women primarily focus on the woman's "naked" body, leaving the man largely offscreen and often clothed or covered. I say, take the camera off the plastic boobs and zoom in on the men! Who's with me? :)
More seriously, though, I think slash fanfiction is also good for "real life" issues. Several straight women I know who are into slash, while never super-prejudiced, also never really were too concerned with gay rights until they got into it. Caring for and connecting to fictional characters, especially for the women who didn't know any openly gay people, bled into their daily lives and now all are heavily involved in or at least very, vocally supportive of gay rights movements.
If it's using "original
Definitions
The definition most of us in
The definition most of us in fandom use requires that one or both of the characters paired are NOT canonically gay. (Dumbledore/Grindlewald is not slash; it's either gay romance or gay porn, depending on the rating.) You are, of course, correct in that slash also requires using someone else's characters (or, in the subgenre of Real Person Fic, the public personae of two actors/musicians/politicians).
******************
Randy Goldberg MD
Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain is probably the most famous and highest quality same-sex romance novel (and movie) ever. As with Brokeback Mountain, the difference between these novels and regular gay sex books is that they are written by straight women, involve men who do not identify as gay, and it focuses much more on romance than sex.
It's everywhere.
I read slash fan fic, mainly in the Harry Potter fandom (but only with the characters portrayed as over 18 years old). There are thousands of us out here reading that sort of thing. And we're (mostly) completely normal human beings. ;p
I think there's slash written about every TV show on air, and even my daughter, who's not particularly into slash, has read Supernatural Wincest.
Slashfic
I became aware of the fiction by fans that had them as lovers back in the early 80's when I went to my first Star Trek convention. I read a few of the booklets folks had and was entertained by them. Never really followed it after that first time but was aware of it.
When I saw the newsweek article it brought back those memories and a bit of amazement that it was still going on. Guess I should not have been.
It's probably like everything else there is good slashfic and bad. With the majority being bad.
slash
I had a chuckle. I have been writing slash for many years, as have many of my friends. It is well known in the community that the majority of both writers and readers are hetrosexual females who write gay slash. Much talk has been on why, fact is we enjoy it.
I write in the Tolkien fandom because I haved loved the elves for a long time. And it is the romance, not just the sex, that comes in context with the story being told.
La Femme Nikita
M/M slash for women
I really don't know for sure why women like the slash. I mean, there is a whole industry built around that in Asia (which was kind of calming to me when I found that out). My best guess is that some straight women like M/M the same way straight men often enjoy F/F. But most women I know, and myself included, can't seem to enjoy the gay porn (or any kind of porn for that matter, I always fall asleep...). I think we need stories, emotions, romance. There is not much of that around in the mainstream media (I guess that's why Brokeback Mountain was such a hit with straight women: two hot guys, lots of feelings and drama and tragedy and romance) - so women invented the slash fanfiction. I am not reading that much anymore, but I read lots of Buffy and Angel fanfiction back in the day, that was one great universe for slash.
Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
It's been quite a while
Interesting read
Thanks for linking that. It was a very interesting read. It goes a long way towards explaining why women write slash, however, some of it seems quite dated. I'd like to see something like that happen again with current slashfic writers.
Nevertheless how outdated some of the reasoning is, those 1991-94 conversations are lightyears ahead of Don Symon's explanations. Henry Jenkins had it right to actually engage the women who are writing slash to learn why they write it, not come up with some dumb heteronormativistic theory on his own.
Jenkins is good, but the one
The historical debt we owe Slash
It really is kind of interesting, because the entire slash phenomenon has powered a behind-the-scenes shift in audience mindsets, especially since the internet provided a more accessible medium than the old fan-published 'zines. Slash, originally conceived and expanded upon by hetero women, has, I believe, really impacted the openess of at least some audiences to real onscreen M/M.
This is especially striking in the case of Torchwood. Despite lots of innuendo, Jack didn't actually do anything really "gay" for most of the first series. But the Jack/Ianto pairing began to become increasingly popular online even before the first series was halfway through (and before Jack and Ianto actually did anything onscreen). It absolutely exploded on sites like Livejournal and Fanfiction.net after series one was over. You had all these straight, female fangirls online actually crying out for Janto. Although the show's producers don't admit it, I strongly believe that this influenced the shift in Ianto from being a minor character to being Jack's boyfriend in series two. Indeed, word was he was slated to be either kept in the background or killed off.
Torchwood is thus distinctive in being a case where the slash ultimately became canon, with the full approvals of fans. It helps clarify the issue of how gay characters same-sex relationships are used on TV and movies today, and maybe provides a hint of what is to come.
The only weak point has been the general lack of slash interest on the part of straight men. One need only look at the Star Trek franchise to illustrate this effect.
Star Trek is perhaps the foundational slash fandom, the one that really started it all. Yet decades of female fans fantasizing about M/M love in Starfleet has not trasnlated onto the big or small screen. I have to wonder if there's a correlation between the generally lower interestin slashfic among straight men and the fact that the Star Trek producers specifically target the Spike TV viewing audience as an explanation why the Trek universe is so utterly devoid of homosexuality.
The battle continues, and the front lines are the fanfiction web sites and blogs!
I think you've certainly
Torchwood Fangirls
Ah yes, that really was the best line in perhaps all the history of Star Trek.
As for Torchwood, I've seen innumerable blog postings and photos of fan events where screaming hordes of squeeing fangirls goad John and Gareth into kissing for them. It really is the funniest phenomenon.
But in this glorious internet age it is now possible for writers to get a feel for what fans are looking for almost in real-time. And it was clear that all the Janto noise on the Web during and after series one had a definite impact on series two.
The only problem appears to be the Star Trek people, who apparently don't use the internet. Not really a big surprise, nobody on the shows does either. I remember one Voyager episode where, after long isolation, the crew finally receives "letters" from back home, which Neelix proceeds to manually distribute on data pads to each crewmember.
All I could think was: it's the 24th friggin' Century! They don't have email?!
Clearly an indication of a lack of tech savvy in the Trek back offices...
"I have to wonder if there's
"I have to wonder if there's a correlation between the generally lower interestin slashfic among straight men and the fact that the Star Trek producers specifically target the Spike TV viewing audience as an explanation why the Trek universe is so utterly devoid of homosexuality."
Actually, that would be Berman and Piller, who have been quoted at cons saying there would be no homosexuality in Trek as long as they were at the helm (which is when I quit watching). Fortunately, they are no longer in charge.
David Gerrold (who is himself gay) had a script for ST:TNG which involved a gay character (Kirk's nephew, I believe) and a mildly heavy-handed metaphor for the AIDS epidemic; Berman refused to allow it to be made. It has since been produced by the fan-run production house known as Star Trek: New Voyages (also called Star Trek Phase II). The episode is called "Blood and Fire," was directed by Gerrold himself, guest stars Denise Crosby, and can be found on STNV's website now.
******************
Randy Goldberg MD
Longtime Reader
I came across slash when I started to read Harry Potter. There are so many fics with Harry as gay. Now I am into McDean slash. I laughed when Wincest was mentioned becasue they recently have done an episode where slash was beeing written about them together.
Neo Slash
My faves have been the Serenity, Stargate, Sentinel, and Xfiles slash, all of which seemed to attract a less 'vanilla' crowd. One reason that the new Kirk/Spock pairing might generate sparks is the the chemistry in the movie is definitiely between them and not (spoiler avoidance) any love interests.
Nous Sommes Tous Sauvages.
Oz Slash
There's a whole slew of OZ Beecher/Keller slashfic out there, and seeing as how they're my favourite "dysfunctional and f*cked up but utterly addictive" couple in the whole world, I do enjoy a good B/K slashfic.
But on that note, I suppose the only stuff that I like might not be true slashfic because I only read what's loyal to things I've seen in the TV episodes (none of that bizarre AU "alternate universe" stuff). I like the pieces that describe things that might have happened between episodes, or shorts that give a good narrative of what's going on in each character's mind in a scene that actually occurred on the show.
More importantly, I really don't like the pieces that are, as mentioned the article, NC-17 because they're basically smut for women (or anyone else who gets off reading about guys having sex). As I'm much more of a visual person when it comes to... that... I'm only in it for the mushy, gushy, angst-inducing drama and romance.
The Truth Is Out There
and straight girls are mostly writing / reading it. I haven't been reading/writing so much in the last few years but when I was my writing buddy was a straight female 6th grade math teacher and I'm a corporate clone. Personally, I was always a Mulder/Krycek or Mulder/Skinner fan. XF had FANTASTIC slash fic.
I agree with the previous poster that females in fandoms are universally ignored for the most part, thus no gay characters in 'fan' movies. The only one who pays attention is Joss Whedon, which is why he's so adored.
Slash fans/writers are everywhere gentlemen, you just don't know it because we're quiet about it. We need some sort of secret handshake or something ...
ah, slash...
i came across slash for the first time when BBM first came out in the theatres. i could only read most of the stories to a certain point and then i would have to stop. After a while, i just decided to steer clear of it.
it sounds strange, but i find slash very....weird and it makes me uncomfortable. it has nothing to do with the m/m pairing either....eh, don't know what really.
As for Torchwood, I've seen innumerable blog postings and photos of fan events where screaming hordes of squeeing fangirls goad John and Gareth into kissing for them. It really is the funniest phenomenon.
^ I agree. it's very amusing stuff. :-)
Slash asks a forbidden question.
"What do women want? No, no, no, straignt women can't possibly want gay romance. It's too icky -- for straight men."
And that's before we get to the even more forbidden question, "What do gay men want?"
I started out on The Desert Peach, a gay romance comic written by a straight woman, and from their found my way to slash. I tend to stick to canon pairings, which means mostly pre-slash and Torchwood. While most slash is written by straight women, there are a lot of gay men writing it as well, and an awful lot more gay and straight men reading it than you might think.
While BBCWales has given us the most slashtastic shows around, they did not invent slash fanservice. Smallville's been doing it for years. They just been hampered by a lack of decent writers and a slash-shy network.
Subversive
"What do women want? No, no, no, straignt women can't possibly want gay romance. It's too icky -- for straight men."
And that's before we get to the even more forbidden question, "What do gay men want?"
Yes! These strange women! They're not even supposed to like sex - it's just something they tolerate from their husbands and boyfriends! And gay men - can't bear to think about that!
This is a very good point, though. In many ways, slash is subversive, allowing people to define and embrace their sexuality from something other than a straight male point of view. In some poorly-written cases, slash is very much simply a self-insertion and/or Mary Sue "straight sex" story with two men. But for the majority of the well-written stuff that I've read, it's about the characters and the relationship and has nothing to do with the women wishing they were "there." This is different from the stereotypical straight male fantasy of two women, because that's (often) about wanting to join in. To me, and many other writers, that's not the case with slash.
Therefore, it's very confusing to some of the insecure straight guys I know or have heard about from other writers. Plus, it's threatening. I mean, it's bad enough if you're fantasizing about one ("straight") actor or character, but two (or more) men that are absolutely nothing like them? And of course, we all know that anything that goes against or threatens straight guy views of sex must be wrong or forbidden.
/
I read mostly anime slash fiction, mostly about characters that are depicted as a couple, but never mention it or talk about it. Animes tend to do that, where two men are featured as more than friends, yet never kiss or talk about being gay; though anyone who watches it knows they are gay. So, i find slash a good way to get the romantic story that the anime does not tell. Favourite pairing is Fai D. Flourite & Kurogane from Tsubasa Chronicles.
Interesting aside, Cracked.com did an article about the most bizarre sex scenes in slash ficiton: http://www.cracked.com/article_16554_5-most-baffling-sex-scenes-in-history-fanfiction.html
Just a warning thingie, the website is made mostly for striaght men, so be weary. They are not homophobic or hateful for gays, it is just that the humour is more for them than for us.
<3
Slash Fandom
I have been part of slash fandom for years... Ever since I discovered some Star Trek Paris/Kim fanfic.. It was so incredibly amusing and I became obsessed with slash of many many different fandoms after that. Due South, Buffy, Angel, X-men, and lots lots more..
I knew that this movie would reignite the slash fandom it has way to many good looking men in it to not do so... Heck I am glad it will I want to read me some Kirk/McCoy fic their interaction in the film was awesome..
Hi, I am an avid reader and
Hi, I am an avid reader and sometime writer (haven't written anything for AGES). I discovered Slash accidentally while looking for Stargate Fanfic (having previously discovered Fanfic while looking for something Harry Potter related - HP still being the only fandom I ever read any Het for!).
As far as why straight women like slash, I can only speak for myself but the whole 'two guys together' thing is the least of it for me (although it does come into it ;D); for me it's all about reading stories I find interesting, intriguing, or just a good read.
There's something just very interesting to me about the dynamics of a male/male relationship - especially when it involves a (new) discovery of orientation. A couple of my close relatives are gay so I've grown up never having any understanding of why people have a problem with it (far as my mum was concerned, you're straight or you're gay, end of - a viewpoint she passed on to us), so I find any kind of stories about the problems faced by gay men (and women) very interesting (and sometimes disturbing and even eye opening). Also, there's a lot of room for angst in m/m stories, and who doesn't love a good bit of angst?
And, bottom line, the good ones are just a really really good read! The main fandom I've been involved in is Atlantis, and there's a lot of really good authors in that fandom.
I have read a few "slash"
Slash fandom.
Funny, I remember watching Battlestar Galactica - the original series in 1982 and thinking that there was more to Apollo/Starbuck than we got to see. I was a 14-15 years old girl then and my friends told me I was crazy. So imagine my (pleasant) surprise when years later I discovered, on the internet, that there were others who were just as insane as me. :)
Although the pairing Apollo/Starbuck never left my fantasies, my interest in slash came back with the series of Horatio Hornblower, when I accidentally fell on a Horatio/Archie Kennedy story. And that was it. These last years I've been reading and 'catching' up with all kinds of series, especially Torchwood (janto)
But the only couple I'm now really interested in (reading AND writing) is Kevin/Scotty from Brothers & Sisters. Perhaps not exactly 'slash' as they are both gay, but watching B&S one would easily forget that detail. It was THE couple that had me start to write my own stories.
As to the reason why 'slash': For me, personally, when I was 15-16 years old (early 80's) sex between two men was just "a forbidden fruit", something you weren't supposed to know about, think about, or certainly NOT fantasize about, so I did just that.
Gotta love it
Slashfic
There is plenty of Kirk/Spock slash on the internet. Maybe the amount will increase after the movie.
Personally I like pairings that dig into subtext (Angel/Spike, Plato/Jim, Kirk/Spock, Prudence/Sadie, etc.) or that could believably be cannon. Almost-but-not-quite-canon-pairings.
I am trying to think of the appeal of slash for me. It is definitely not the lack of females because I like femslash too (except I have never seen an episode of half of the shows that have common femslash pairing (ex. Gossip Girl)). Perhaps it is the room for angst? Or the fact that there are a lot of examples of cheesy het romance in mainstream pop culture so there is no need to dig it up at an amateur level? Because 'tis voyeuristic?
HenryZ- Yes, I have definitely come across some (not many) homophobic slash writing fangirls and it is puzzling as all hell.
Subtext
Or the fact that there are a lot of examples of cheesy het romance in mainstream pop culture so there is no need to dig it up at an amateur level?
I'm going to run with this idea a little. The will-they-won't-they couple has become standard cliche, but I think a lot of TV/movie writers don't really understand why it's popular. It seems to me that they think "Oh - let's put ridiculous obstacle after poorly timed other love interest after silly misunderstanding between these two every time it seems they're about to get together and then in the fifth (or seventh or tenth) season when the ratings are dropping, they can finally have the inevitable, sometimes gratuitous sex scene." (Josh/Donna on West Wing, I'm looking at you.)
For me, classic couples (straight and gay) that I rooted for were much more about the tension, the underlying feelings, the subtext, and so on. Until recently, gay couples could not be shown even as they are now, and so to see those relationships, the fans, actors and writers needed to be a little cleverer, give a little more innuendo (Fraser/Ray K on Due South, I'm looking at you. [It was canon, I don't care what anyone says.]) For someone who's going to be spending their time constructing fan fiction, this is an exciting challenge, plus you can actually have it realized which, in many cases, would never have happened "on-screen."
(As an aside: I think it takes a lot more creativity and skill to write a realistic, happy, interesting couple. I hate the argument that all couples become boring when they get together, although that's definitely the case for some pairings. I've read loads of interesting and exciting stories about characters after the "happily ever after." It's possible. I think it's just that the writers are lazy, unimaginative, and don't have enough faith in their audience.)
Slashfic
For me, classic couples (straight and gay) that I rooted for were much more about the tension, the underlying feelings, the subtext, and so on. Until recently, gay couples could not be shown even as they are now, and so to see those relationships, the fans, actors and writers needed to be a little cleverer, give a little more innuendo (Fraser/Ray K on Due South, I'm looking at you. [It was canon, I don't care what anyone says.]) For someone who's going to be spending their time constructing fan fiction, this is an exciting challenge, plus you can actually have it realized which, in many cases, would never have happened "on-screen."
(As an aside: I think it takes a lot more creativity and skill to write a realistic, happy, interesting couple. I hate the argument that all couples become boring when they get together, although that's definitely the case for some pairings. I've read loads of interesting and exciting stories about characters after the "happily ever after." It's possible. I think it's just that the writers are lazy, unimaginative, and don't have enough faith in their audience.)
Agreed. The subtext is sometimes more interesting. And it gives a lot for a fanfiction writer to work with.
And couple that are together appear to be more difficult to write. But when they are written well 'tis lovely.
Slash
Another point sometimes made about slash.
I'm a reader and writer of
I'm a reader and writer of slash in a couple of different fen. The 'squick' factor varies greatly from fen to fen. Someone in the Harry Potter fandom might be squicked by Weasly twincest, but the fen of Supernatural take it in stride, because it's part of their fandom. Some fandoms don't pay any attention to reality (the need for lube among other things) while others are sticklers for detail.
Each fandom has something for each fan. I love Star Trek (from TOS, which I watched in retuns as a kid to TNG), but I don't write slashfic for it. I might be caught writing gen. Maybe. But fandoms are varied and multileveled. Just like anything else, you can't box everyone into one container. There's something for everyone in every fen, from slash to ship to gen.
slash is great
A friend tried to get me to read slash for the first time when I was 13. I had no idea why on earth they would want to pair up men who were straight in canon. It wasn't that I found it 'squicky', I was just a stickler for canon and to me it didn't make sense. Of course, the further you go into the internet world of fandom the more you run into this kind of thing. I think within a year I was officially a slash 'shipper', and to be honest I don't remember what changed my mind. Probably because the first slash I was presented with had little subtext in the actual books, but as time went on I found couples that seemed logical and supportable by subtext. For me, that has always been behind my favourite slash pairings, just as it is behind my favourite hetero pairings - a certain relationship dynamic in the reality of the show. Not just "oh those guys are hot lets put them together".
All these years later I'm an avid reader and writer of slash - mostly Harry Potter (Remus/Sirius and Scorpius/Albus Severus) and Merlin (Merlin/Arthur, of course). I have to say, Supernatural is such a hotbed for slash, I have been tempted from time to time to read Wincest. But mostly its Dean/Castiel. So now I'm the one with the friends who don't always quite get the predeliction for M/M. I don't really understand why as a straight female that is so hard to understand. Obviously the 'hot' aspect of it isn't the be all and end all of the heterosexual female love of slash (I think for a lot of women it is the emotional expression between two males that they find a fascinating concept), but it is a component. People take the straight male obsession with F/F in their stride, and yet seem to struggle with the concept working in reverse.
Shout out to boyband slash,
100% straight, 100% slasher
The quote in my subject line is my default icon in my own LiveJournal blog because, well, that is exactly what my blog is mostly about.
I started coming across slash fanfics by chance. I was already a Harry Potter fan. And then someone made a graphic of Daniel Radcliffe (Harry) and Rupert Grint (Ron) picture manipulation and I fell for it. And now, I'm a proud Harry/Ron fangirl. Occasionally, I do read RPS (Real People Slash) fanfics of Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint.
That's my first foray into slash fandom.
Then, I came across Queer As Folk. I don't think that fanfics of Brian Kinney/Justin Taylor (Britin, which I think got its name first from the writers of QAF itself) is really slash as it's canon and they are both gays. But I did also read RPS of Gale Harold/Randy Harrison. Most of them are hilarious. I just pick and choose which one would be "safe" for me to read. Haha!
Then there's Jack/Ianto (Janto). I don't know whether that really constitutes as slash now cos it's pretty canon now, isn't it? But I think the writers got into it because of the fangirls of the show who did slash these two in the first place. As I came in late into the whole Torchwood fandom, I don't really know.
And then there's Alexander/Hephaistion. This, in my opinion, is due to the whole "Alexander: Was he? Or wasn't he?" Historians do agree at one thing though - that Alexander and Hephaistion were really close. But until now, the question remains: "Were they? Or weren't they?" Even the end of Alexander's life is a question mark: Did he commit suicide because he lost Hephaistion, who was his only true love? Some people mentioned that Alexander asked Hephaistion to marry one of the sisters (or cousin, I can't remember) of his wife so that they could be "related", so that Hephaistion's children could look at Alexander like their own father. And of course, there's the movie, that not-so-good-three-hours-of-a-movie. That just fuelled more fanfic writers to actually write slash fictions of Alexander and Hephaistion because hey, it's Jared Leto and Colin Farell. Oh, talking about them, yup, there's RPS fanfics of them.
And there's Merlin/Arthur from the series Merlin cos it's sooo obvious. Both are cute guys. The chemistry between the two are great, which in turn makes it a little bit easier for slash fanfic writers to write about them. But one went a little bit further. Nope, she didn't write it, she made a video that had the two of them kissing.
My latest fangirl slash is Kris Allen and Adam Lambert from the current American Idol. Oh, just cos they asked for it. And it doesn't make it any easier for us to stop when they are very close and quotes coming out from their interviews just screams for it. For example...
Adam: I love that guy.
Kris: We're still kind of roomies.
Kris: We still rely on each other.
Oh, and currently, the ones making hearts of fangirls of Kris/Adam (Kradam) flutter is the little painted thumb (LPT) on Kris. Apparently, Adam painted that thumbnail of his. Oh, before I blabber on and on and on about my latest craze, go and google them. I'm pretty sure you'll understand why some girls are now Kradam fans.
Lesbians who like m/m slash
Interestingly enough, there are also quite a few lesbians who enjoy slash. I am a bi woman who has been involved in slash (House/Wilson and Vince/Stuart from QAFUK), and although the community is almost entirely made up of women who like men, there is the odd lesbian or straight man. I've mused at length on why that might be, and I think one of the reasons is that there's simply a lot more gay male subtext in pop culture than there is lesbian subtext (see the Bechdel rule - it's rare enough that there are two women who have any kind of meaningful interaction in a movie, let alone any sexual tension). For me, and I think for a lot of people, slash is about subverting heteronormativity while still remaining true to the original text - and to stay true to the text you can't just pair two women up at random because they're hot, there has to be something underlying it, and often that subtext just isn't there. There's also the fact that there aren't a hell of a lot of well-written women on TV. Battlestar Galactica is an obvious counterexample, but with such well-realised relationships the urge to subvert is a lot less strong, whereas on a show like House, where the central male friendship is one of the most important facets of the show, and where the women often aren't much more than foils or love interests (I love the show but its female characters are very poor), the obvious way to go is to pair up House and Wilson, and the writers definitely play up to this. Of course, there is also the argument that women's sexuality is a lot more mutable than men's. Many people would completely disagree, but I'm inclined to believe it's true.
I thought the new Star Trek movie was disappointingly straight, but then I'm not really that knowledgeable about the show. I did think that the evolution of the K/S relationship was noticeably similar to the way het relationships often develop in romcoms, but it was played totally platonically. Shame, that...
The new Trek drek
I wouldn't say "disappointingly" so much as "self-consciously" straight.
Having finally gotten around to seeing it last night I was struck by how much of a conscious c*ck-block Uhura was written to be in the movie. On the upside the character had much more to do than she ever did on the original series. But her romance with Spock was very blatantly designed to splash some cold water on any sparks that might be seen between Kirk and Spock in this era where gay subtext is much more apparent to the general audience than in past generations.
That Spock, who always cultivates such a stance of emotional control was seen acting so "human" with Uhura was clearly intended to allay straight fanboy fears that his "bromance" with Kirk might lose the "b". I mean come on, Spock was kissing her on the trasnporter pad before beaming over to the Narada!
This was my one big gripe with the film, and not just because I too have slash fantasies about Kirk and Spock (especially now that they're played by much hotter actors!). But for Spock, who is always very conscious of maintaining his unemotional Vulcan facade around others, to start making out with Uhura in front of other crewmembers is just massively out of character! Vulcans, as a rule, avoid all but the most restrained gestures of interaction in public. PDA is utterly unheard of. Indeed, one of the common sights of the old series was beautiful women becoming utterly enamored with the seemingly oblivious, or at least uninterested, Spock.
So I could only interpret the action as a conscious attempt to keep the movie on the "straight and narrow". Is it disappointing? Only a little. My expectations are low. The only thing straighter than Star Trek is Star Wars. One can't expect that they would show any outreach to gay fans after so many decades of successfully ignoring us. Given that this movie clearly sought to move Star Trek into more of an action/adventure genre than the franchise has classically occupied, the overt effort to guarantee it's appeal to straight male audiences is to be expected.
Thus I guess that the only same-sex love in Star Trek will remain within the realm of fan fiction.
I was well aware of slash