forget your Unified Theory of Everything

-Angel/Spike ficathon: grazieprego. It's been decided Buffyverse is retro enough to be cool again. Throw your hat in; it's going to be amazing. The awesomesauciest of writers are doing it! Except for you, you're not, so why are you still here? Even if you don't sail that ship, you're welcome to write their canon selves--there was enough subtext (sometimes text) there to canonball a ship, get it? Wait that metaphor does not make sense. It can involve other ships and people as long as there is Angel/Spike. Just do it; I love it.

-Speaking of ships and canon I don't understand myself. I really don't. I, in fact, stopped understanding myself the moment fodian began to show me pictures like this:

I seriously regard that as my downfall, because that was the first thing I was attracted to (uh, in a sexy way) something that didn't fall along what I'm usually attracted to. And then it turned into 'ships--Spike/Connor, of all things, and Angel/Connor, and there was that weird two months where I lived and breathed Angel/Spike. But then it REALLY went downhill because there was Draco/Harry, which I understand even less. And then out of left field there was Commissioner Gordon/Bruce Wayne, don't even ask. And now it's Godfather. No, seriously. WTF, brain? There are only even like 2 Godfather slashers on the whole planet (both of them rock, btw, and have awesome hot fic. hollycomb and igbc).

-On that note, I have meme: Ask me a fandom-related question, anything related to fandom, and I will try to answer. Ships, het, slash, wank, wars, posting, TV, books, movies, comics, fanon, canon, whatever.

-( And because I have a MILLION OTHER THINGS to do I made a list of everything I've ever shipped in a serious way. )

Here's how I feel about slash: all good literature and stories are really just romances. Some just have porn, and others don't.

When I get fannish about something, it's always for a romance between two characters. Two characters will be set up in a story with these elements: their love for each other, their problems with each other, the UST. Then there's my engagement with these two characters: my desires that they come through for each other, that they end up happily ever after, that they have lots and lots of sex. A good story will give the set up all kinds of conflict, all kinds of tension, so that my engagement, my response is to desire that all that conflict and tension be resolved. I express those desires through fandom: my daydreams, fic, and fannish discussions revolve around either replicating that conflict and tension, or resolving it. (A good description of the kind of "desires" I'm talking about, is when you're shouting at the screen: "Kiss already!" Now, after that, you may go write a fic in which they do kiss, and it's such a relief. Or you may go write a fic in which everything thing gets so fucked up beyond belief that they never kiss at all, but both are an expression of the "Kiss already!" desire.)

In a good story, platonic relationships will have the exact same elements, except for the sex element. A truly compelling literary friendship will have two characters set up to love each other, to have problems with each other, to have conflict and tension, except without the UST. And a viewer/reader/experiencers engagement with a good set up like that will be the same: (s)he will desire that the friends come through for each other, that they resolve their issues. And let's take it one step farther, and mention the fanfic interest in incest. In a good story, relationships between members of a family will have the exact same elements, except for the sex elements.

This is where slash comes from, imo. It's about a reader/viewer engaging the set up by desiring that sexual element, because the set up for a platonic relationship are so similar to the set up for a sexual relationship, and produce many of the same forms of engagement, same desires. Does this similarity hold for relationships irl? I don't know, but for me, it doesn't bear comparison, because our rl relationships are not specific set ups meant to engage readers/viewers. But in a good story, the set up and engagement is the same between a well developed platonic relationship and a well developed sexual relationship, the only exception being the sexual element, from what I can tell.

It's not that slashers don't believe in platonic relationships, can't respect them, or think they're lesser, weaker, or unimportant as compared to sexual relationships. No matter how the slasher really feels, slash itself is not about sexualizing everything, or asserting that the only true expression of a relationship can be sex. It's about how a reader/viewer engages a particular set up; in fic, adding the sexual element is adding another dimension to the conflict that has been set up, and another dimension to the reader/viewers engagement. It might not engage you. It engages me, 'cause I like to read about sex.

And what have I learned, from all this?--Write my gen like smut, and write my smut like gen. Smut that is only interested in the sexual element, without the rest of the set up of conflict that deals with love and issues etc, might get you off, but it does not a good story make. Likewise, gen that approaches the relationship between characters as if they were all romances, is what really sets up a good relationship in your story: after all, that's how we get the slash we do: Angel and Spike's story in AtS; Harry and Ron, Harry and Snape, Sirius and Lupin; Sam and Frodo. It's what Kirk and Spock is all about. /meta for the day.

I'm invoking my official capacity as . . . Official Capacity Invoking Gal to declare this month the Month Of The OTP.

Because when some people think of B/A they think: they're so over. And when some people think of A/S they think: but they're not gay! And when some people think of S/X they think: I . . . I just don't get it. And when some people read B/F they think: I'm liking it and I don't even know why! And when some people read B/Gunn they think: hey! those two never even met!

And so I'm going to share my love for my own OTP. I have a bunch of bits floating around in my back up files (because my comp blew up) and in my head that're all about My Favorite Pairing: why I ship them, why I love them, things I think other people should know about them, recs I want and recs I want to give, what I hate about it, things I feel like whining about in regards to it.

I love B/A. I want others who love B/A to splooge with me in a cesspit of love. And I want others who don't love B/A to learn something about my love, or to grow to respect it, or to try a fic and discover they kinda like it or no, that they really hate it, or to point and laugh and say affectionately, oh, you silly B/Aers, we all know Snyder/Oz is the only ship worth squeeing over! I want those who don't love B/A to share their B/S love, or A/S love, or S/X love, or B/F love, or Snyder/Oz love, and teach me something about it, or romance me into loving it with them.

So I'm going to try to organize my B/A bits and share my love, because I'm nothing if not a great big old mushy . . . Mushy Gal. And because I doubt anyone else has been collecting OTP bits and wondering what to do with them like I have, or that anyone is going to say: this is a great idea tkp, let me go squee in my own journal right now (though I'm secretly hoping every one of you will, which is apparently no longer a secret), you can do it here.

( Because I'm interested in you, your loves, your fic, your recs, your kinks, your complaints, your why doesn't anyone see the beauty of Lilah/Clem?s, your rants, your squees, your flames, your meta, your why I'm here in this fandom!s . . . and also because gosh darn it, I like you, and I want to like your 'ship too. )