such_heights | You are the unforcasted storm

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You are the unforcasted storm

Oh boy. I think putting NaNo on ice was just as well, really, because words of a fictional variety are just not happening at the moment. Which is a shame, because I'd love to be working on said NaNo, or Yuletide, or

rs_small_gifts, or the first foray into SGA I'm contemplating for

mcsmooch, etc etc.

Instead, big long essay/rant type things keep seeming to appear, considering that my brain is doing nothing but trying to churn out said essays at the moment, I guess it's a bit inevitable. Anyway, I've successfully convinced myself that really, no, no one cares about ~~my thoughts on yaoi~~ my thoughts on the anti-slash vs. anti-het debate that seems to keep cropping at

fandomsecrets at the moment (I suspect watching that comm is a bad, bad idea, but it's so compelling, somehow), and various other things that I've been this close to ranting about over the past couple of days.

Still faintly contemplating finally following through on the queerness in Doctor Who & Torchwood thing I've been threatening to write for however long, with exciting subheadings like 'people assume the Doctor's heterosexual because why?', 'Jack and Gender', 'the Problem of Toshiko' and 'okay, Torchwood, it'd be sort of nice if you stopped being so damned post-gay already'. Or something, I don't know. Meta, I has it.

In the meantime, I slink back to the vidding as being the only non-work thing I seem to be capable of at the minute. It's something creative! It involves no words! Bless iMovie's little heart. Though my brain appears to be so mushy that the only thing I'm making progress on is the vid which is pretty much just 'Guns! Aliens! Sex! Explosions! - Welcome to Cardiff'. :D

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I just did something for

go_exchange on top of working on NaNo, and that was definitely tricky; I've really fallen into a block as far as word count goes. That's why I haven't reached 50,000 yet, even though I've been circling it for days.

And yeah, I'm totally addicted to

fandomsecrets, even though I really shouldn't be. And I'd absolutely read your thoughts on slash vs. het (mine: both are fine, personal preference, I don't get why it's a big deal).

I'm seriously impressed with that word count all the same! And ooh yay, I didn't know you were writing for GO this year, how exciting.

It's so bad, and hacks me off so much of the time. And yet! I think what that bugs me about the slash vs. het thing, is that yes, some of the anti-het sentiment from the exclusively m/m slashers does reek of 'ewww girls having sex is icky', which is very horrible, but being pretty much only interested in same sex ships does not equate to the rampant 'slash goggles'/heterophobia/fangirlism a lot of people seem to make out. Het relationships, after all, are every-freaking-where, and as our individual fannish experiences are totally within our control, I don't blame people for avoiding that for whatever reason. And I think the upshot of that is, when you get the rabid anti-slash people (namely the sorts who don't just dislike it but think that somehow other people doing it is unfair on the characters/creators blah blah) throwing that around, it's a big ol' dose of enforced heteronormativity in the face, which, you know. Sucks.

Or something; I don't know, I need to go sleep already, the above may not make sense. *scarpers*

I can absolutely see where you're coming from. I have definitely encountered slash/yaoi fans that are absolutely against women in any shape or form; Supernatural fandom has more people like that than I'd prefer, although I don't think that's the majority by any means. And it doesn't help either side of the argument that there's a decided lack of strong female characters in a lot of fandoms that I've been in.

Really, the way I see it is that flame wars in either direction are kinda pointless, and I can see why someone would prefer just het or why someone would prefer just same-sex pairings. But hating on slashers is terrible because there's such limited representation of anything besides straight people in pop culture, and in life, really. Just because anti-slashers are in the minority in fandom doesn't really mean that they're justified in picking on slashers.

TL;DR, you made sense, I agree. :D

Yeah, Supernatural is so, so bad for that. One of the reasons I'm not more involved in the fandom, I think. I love the Sam'n'Dean show, but I can't really base my whole fannish experience around just two guys, you know? Especially when it leads to crazy like you say.

Yeah, the picking on slashers thing always reeks so much of 'zomg I am so oppressed', especially with regard to the really popular slash ships. Did you know that by being interested in Remus/Sirius we're totally invalidating the Remus/Tonks folks' abilities to enjoy their ship? IT'S TRUE. *facepalm* That attitude definitely goes both ways, and it's very silly indeed.

I'd love to see your thoughts on anti-slash vs. anti-het too-- I write both, so I'm interested. :P And I'd read anything you had to say about queerness in DW/TW too.

I've faintly attempted to outline what I was thinking to

cho_malfoy above - actually, in terms of writing it, that's a good point.

I've found that pretty much all the het ships I have are just the canon ones I particularly like, and I'll rarely to never write fanon het pairings. I'm pretty happy using my available shipping energies (because, you know, fanon pairings are hard work *g*) for slash as a way of redressing the imbalance in most sources, and it bothers me there seems to be an attitude in places that that's shallow or indulgent or whatever, as though deciding that male character X is 100% straight and also pairing him with female character Y is less so? Writing pairings because it's hot or you feel like it is totally okay and part of what fandom's about, but somehow it feels like it's more okay to do that when taking characters' sexualities as laid out by the Powers That Be and so on, which I definitely don't think fandom needs to be about that at all.

I definitely see what you're saying there.

My experience in writing slash is sort of odd, I think, since the pairing I write most of the time (Jack/Ianto) is canon, while there is more evidence for my favourite fanon slash pairings (Remus/Sirius, Jack/Ten) than there is for some of the het ones (mainly Jack/Sarah Jane). Of course, my involvement in fandom has been pretty much limited to the Whoniverse and a small corner of HP fandom, so it's hard to say if there's any sort of pattern there that I should be reflecting on.

I guess the one thing that stands out to me is that I haven't written any femmeslash, although that's not because I have anything against it-- even though I'm straight myself (well except for my huge girlcrush on Sarah Jane :P), I find f/f relationships just as compelling as any others emotionally, even if I'm not so interested sexually. I know this probably sounds silly, given that I'm a woman who writes m/m slash, but the main reason I haven't written any femmeslash is because I'm really scared that I'll get it wrong somehow.

Oh yes, man, Jack/Ianto throws everything out of the water! I shipped-- a slash pairing-- that went on to be canon. WTF. By which I mean, AWESOME, but still. Not the usual way of things! But that's interesting, about the relative popularity of slash vs. het ships we follow, hmm.

the main reason I haven't written any femmeslash is because I'm really scared that I'll get it wrong somehow.

Yeah, I see this around a bit - even more ridiculous, I've felt that way myself. Het? Sure. Boyslash? Not a problem? The one I know something about? Apparently that's intimidating. *headdesk* I've got over it now, but I think it's the knowledge that it's a bit more directly personal for at a reasonable portion of your intended audience. DW fandom's definitely cured me of that, though, because I do love the femslash lot and their ability to ship everyone with everyone else.

I think it's the knowledge that it's a bit more directly personal for at a reasonable portion of your intended audience

Yes, I definitely think that's a big part of it. There's more of a feeling that I'd be letting my friends down if I did it badly. But then again, I'm probably also letting my friends down by not giving f/f ships the same amount of time that I give to m/m or f/m.

In a lot of fandoms, I think there's also the problem of shows/books/films that don't pass the Bechdel Test (or only pass it very narrowly)-- there's simply very few well developed female characters, let alone well developed female characters who interact with each other. However, that is definitely not the case with Whoniverse fandoms-- plenty of well-developed women, and they do interact with each other (although having said that, the two femmeslash Whoniverse pairings that I want to write are about women who've never met each other in canon-- and one of them is about characters who only appeared in one episode each!).

Which ones, out of curiosity?

At some point, I'd like to write a Sarah Jane/Tosh story, and an Estelle Cole/Bea Nelson Stanley story.

(Oh, and I should add, that I didn't mean to imply that I don't have any gay male friends above-- it's just that they don't generally read my fic. :P)

Sarah/Tosh might be interesting, but ... um, I have to admit I can't think who either of the other two are?

Estelle was an old lover of Jack's-- she appeared in the TW episode Small Worlds. Bea was a character in the SJA story Eye of the Gorgon.

Oh right, I remember who Bea was now (haven't seen Small Worlds). Yes, there did seem to be a lot of potential backstory to explore there.

But really, worrying is silly, yes? *encourages* :D Also, ooh, Sarah Jane/Tosh ftw, I really like the sound of that, and though I had to google Bea, that also sounds v. v. cool!

Heh, I also realised as I was thinking about this, my shipping preferences in Who seem to be very simple: Jack/everyone and Martha/everyone. Um. Not that I have favourites or anything.

there's simply very few well developed female characters, let alone well developed female characters who interact with each other.

*nod nod* That's obviously a problem Doctor Who's had until this latest series, really, where suddenly Martha/Donna is plausible and Rose/Donna is practically canon, hee. (The Doctor can only kiss Rose when he's got some Donna in him! \o/! Not to mention the entirety of 'Turn Left'.)

Other fandoms that spring to mind as having good female interaction are Buffy, Firefly, and Star Trek Voyager, but out of most of the genre fiction I enjoy you'd really have to work a little harder to get anything, which is a shame.

Lol, yes, Jack/Everyone is so easy to ship! :D I haven't written much Martha, but after writing a Doctor/Martha fic a couple of weeks ago, I've been wanting to explore her character a lot more. I really liked the way you explored Martha/Rose in your fic-- I think that worked really well.

And yeah, when I did my Bechdel Test assessment of Doctor Who, most of the passes came from female companions talking to either their mothers, or to one-off female characters, so there's little in the way of sustained character development with potential subtext.

I find that a lot of animes have relationships between women with a lot of subtext-- I'm watching one at the moment, The Twelve Kingdoms, and the love/hate relationship between the main female characters is just OOZING with sexual tension, and I felt there was a lot of potential in the relationship between Pacifica and Winia in Scrapped Princess too. Unfortunately, I tend not to get into these shows to the extent that I actually know them well enough to write fanfiction about them.

I hope you write those essays. I would LOVE to read them.

Cool! Well, I suspect something or other shall be coming to a flist near you soon.

Rants are good for the soul!

This time of the semester sucks, doesn't it? M.

They really are, especially to sympathetic ears.

Oh, so much! Offline I'm surrounded by so much stress and woe from all sides, and on here it seems much the same. Here's to getting out the other side!

In my eyes, fandom is meant to be having fun. So whether you like slash, femmeslash or het, fun needs to be had. And that means no peeing in other people's cornflakes. *nods*

Seriously! There's really no need to try and create some sort of hierarchy based on arbitrary whatever. I don't know why that's a difficult concept for some people.

Pack mentality :(

Oh my god I would so read all those 'sub heading' posts!

Cool! Well, chances of writing the damn thing seem to be increasing, so.

You could always come and join us on

picowrimo -- it's wonderful fun!

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