I always thought it was very odd to have 'original' slash-- or even name-only character slash in existing universes-- and call it slash (since I'd barely call it fanfic). I don't know if I've noticed a recognizable 'style' in the majority of slash fics vs. 'normal' romance, I guess, except as in most hetero published romance is bad (...and so is most slash... and fic in general).
I mean, if you take away 'slashing these two canon straight or sexually-ambiguous characters you see in the source text', what remains? Writing about people in a 'certain way'?? Taking straight-acting (WTF??!) boys & making them like each other...? Does that make all slash a coming-of-age story...?
I think what the whole 'style' of slash thing is getting at is that it's a romance genre vs. an act by an audience. Applying m/f romance conventions on m/m stories-- or implying that dynamic without actually making it obvious. That's making it 'slashy', then-- when two boys act sorta like a boy and a girl. However... I always thought that was only how -bad- slash was like. That is, people made one of the boys a girl and substituted just because they were incapable of realism or didn't want any-- and perhaps, given the evidence of most fic, one could say that's what slashers want, but....
If you wrote a realistic depiction of m/m queer desire for characters who're canonically straight or ambiguous, wouldn't that be slash? I suppose that's priviledging the 'act' over the style (which I do).
Perhaps you could define slashing as taking homoerotic close male bonds & making them romantic-- but this is a very tricky thing, since you'd first have to convincingly write said homoerotic bond in a non-slashy way, if that makes sense. It would have to work on two levels-- you can't set out to write slashily 'cause then it'd mess up the foundation. It's like, slash seems to be the 'second layer'-- You'd have to be able to add it or take it away, and if you take it away, the relationship would have to remain almost the same (in a classic sense, I think).
Basically, I think seeing all m/m romance (say, QAF or some random original fic) as slash totally doesn't work for me to the point where I think the idea is laughable. Besides this, it gets tricky because rivals also get slashed, not just friends-- so it's not all about homoerotic bonds & closeness, it's also about chemistry. If you're writing the basis for slash as well as slashing, you'd have to take off your clothes while naked, yes-- but basically, I've read some 'original' slash, and I don't see that happening. I see romance fics happening-- where the romantic attraction is there from the beginning, pretty much, which takes away the foundation. There have to be two stories for the price of one, and I just don't see that going on in most people's definitions as I see through their writing.
As far as writing 'slash' (rather than actual slash)-- that's just writing about male characters with intense homosocial bonds, whether friendship-type or rivalry, and it almost offends me that this would have to be slashy just because it's present in the fic. I mean, you could see it that way as a reader, but what's the point of meaning it to be slashy? It seems dishonest somehow-- like instead of just being a fic, it's got an immediate 'media tie-in' or something. *sigh*
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I mean, if you take away 'slashing these two canon straight or sexually-ambiguous characters you see in the source text', what remains? Writing about people in a 'certain way'?? Taking straight-acting (WTF??!) boys & making them like each other...? Does that make all slash a coming-of-age story...?
I think what the whole 'style' of slash thing is getting at is that it's a romance genre vs. an act by an audience. Applying m/f romance conventions on m/m stories-- or implying that dynamic without actually making it obvious. That's making it 'slashy', then-- when two boys act sorta like a boy and a girl. However... I always thought that was only how -bad- slash was like. That is, people made one of the boys a girl and substituted just because they were incapable of realism or didn't want any-- and perhaps, given the evidence of most fic, one could say that's what slashers want, but....
If you wrote a realistic depiction of m/m queer desire for characters who're canonically straight or ambiguous, wouldn't that be slash? I suppose that's priviledging the 'act' over the style (which I do).
Perhaps you could define slashing as taking homoerotic close male bonds & making them romantic-- but this is a very tricky thing, since you'd first have to convincingly write said homoerotic bond in a non-slashy way, if that makes sense. It would have to work on two levels-- you can't set out to write slashily 'cause then it'd mess up the foundation. It's like, slash seems to be the 'second layer'-- You'd have to be able to add it or take it away, and if you take it away, the relationship would have to remain almost the same (in a classic sense, I think).
Basically, I think seeing all m/m romance (say, QAF or some random original fic) as slash totally doesn't work for me to the point where I think the idea is laughable. Besides this, it gets tricky because rivals also get slashed, not just friends-- so it's not all about homoerotic bonds & closeness, it's also about chemistry. If you're writing the basis for slash as well as slashing, you'd have to take off your clothes while naked, yes-- but basically, I've read some 'original' slash, and I don't see that happening. I see romance fics happening-- where the romantic attraction is there from the beginning, pretty much, which takes away the foundation. There have to be two stories for the price of one, and I just don't see that going on in most people's definitions as I see through their writing.
As far as writing 'slash' (rather than actual slash)-- that's just writing about male characters with intense homosocial bonds, whether friendship-type or rivalry, and it almost offends me that this would have to be slashy just because it's present in the fic. I mean, you could see it that way as a reader, but what's the point of meaning it to be slashy? It seems dishonest somehow-- like instead of just being a fic, it's got an immediate 'media tie-in' or something. *sigh*