thoughts I have

[lirazel]

snickfic made an offhanded comment once upon a time that has been popping up again in my head lately because I seem to be getting sucked into Harry Potter fandom yet again (at least on tumblr) and questions have started to ~stew~. So I thought I’d get some insight from y’all.

Slash fandom baffles me. I mean, sometimes it makes sense. Spike/Angel, sure. I get where you’re coming from. Merlin fandom, from what I know of it, seems to get a whole lot of canon winks/support. Even Kirk/Spock makes sense to me. And Torchwood had slash for your big canon ship.

But there seems to be very little pattern to what makes a big slash ship and what doesn’t.

For instance. Harry Potter. Why is there not a huge Harry/Ron fandom? Heterosexual life partners, here. At least as much textual evidence to support them as to support Harry/Hermione. They even have their moments of hating each others’ guts (GoF, anyone?). And yet nothing, as far as I know (well, sometimes there’s OT3 action, which again, makes loads of sense. But not a lot). And there’s Harry/Draco and Harry/Snape out the whazoo (no wisecracks, please). And okay. People love enmity turning into sex. Got it. But still. Why one and not the other? Can someone please explain this to me?

Is Jeremy/Tyler big in TVD fandom? I am not deeply involved in that fandom, so I don’t know. And then there’s Spike/Xander which makes less than zero sense to me (well, Xander finding Spike attractive seems to be canon. But I can’t see it ever, ever going the other way), because there’s not a lot of outright hatred there, just weird contempt. Is Troy/Abed big and I just don’t know about it? If fandom always ships people who hate each other, where’s the Logan/Weevil? What about Wes/Gunn or Tim Riggins/Jason Street or Chuck/Nate or Tony/Sid? Some of those BFF pairings have really fantastic (platonic, in my eyes, but I could easily see it being otherwise for people) chemistry along the lines of Kirk/Spock or something. So what determines what’s going to take off as a pairing? How does fandom determine that in one fandom they’re going to turn the enemies into lovers and in another they won’t? Or that in this fandom they BFFs are TOTALLY DOING IT while in another they’re just friends?

Of course, one could ask the same thing about het pairings—why some are huge and others are not, but I tend to have much more of an instinct about which one’s going to be the big one (Jeff/Annie having a more active fandom than Jeff/Britta surprises me not at all, and I could have told you that people were going to ship Damon/Elena from literally their first meeting, for example, and the lack of Buffy/Riley—yes, I know there are a few of you out there, but I mean as an active fandom—is the least shocking thing ever). This instinct seems to be non-existent for me when it comes to slash, though (what’s the opposite of slash goggles? Whatever it is, I’ve got that).

This doesn’t really affect me in any way because slash = not my thing. I am just trying to find some sort of discernible pattern here, because I seem to be epically bad at predicting what will and will not be big. Thoughts?

Comments

[eleusis-walks.livejournal.com]

I mean, I've seen plenty of Harry/Ron but it's not a big as Harry/Draco or Harry/Snape both because of the enmity factor and because Draco and Snape are fangirl darlings. Slash fandom is almost never about what would actually make the most sensible homosexual relationship, but rather about boys women find attractive having sex for the benefit of those women.

I have a lot of feelings about this subject. ;)

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I have seen very, very little Harry/Ron that doesn't involve Hermione, too. I must be looking in the wrong place?

Slash fandom is almost never about what would actually make the most sensible homosexual relationship, but rather about boys women find attractive having sex for the benefit of those women.

I'm picking up on that, yeah, but then I don't actually like Snape or Draco. Interesting characters, yes. But one's a jerk who likes to take out his anger and bitterness on children and the other's just something of a slimy little coward. Sure, Alan Rickman is Alan Rickman, and Tom Felton seems like he'd be great to hang out with, but.... Eh. To each their own.

But then, there's a reason that the trope is called Draco in Leather Pants, I suppose.

I have a lot of feelings about this subject. ;)

I am certain of this. :D It's awesome paired with that icon.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Can I make a shocking hypothesis about the gross lack of Wesley/Gunn compared to Wesley/Angel (Which is numerous and plenty)?

Racism.

Other than that, I got nothing.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I suspect that you are right. And I hatehatehate it.

[eleusis-walks.livejournal.com]

I think that's definitely part of it, but I also think Gunn just doesn't read as queer as Wes and Angel do.

[gwynevere1.livejournal.com]

Can I make a shocking hypothesis about the gross lack of Wesley/Gunn compared to Wesley/Angel (Which is numerous and plenty)?

Racism.

Although I have no proof, I strongly suspect that's also why there's a lot less Shawn/Gus in Psych fandom than Shawn/Lassiter, even though Shawn and Gus are *clearly* life partners.

[blackfrancine.livejournal.com]

Well. I think it's rooted in racism--but not necessarily fans'. The writers', perhaps. Because Gunn isn't nearly as developed or interesting as Wesley (which I think comes from the fact that the writers had NO IDEA how to write a complex black man struggling with his identity--and instead of hiring a black writer, or someone comfortable with writing black characters, they said, fuck it. Let's write about Wesley, and make Gunn date Fred). I think the complexity is part of what draws people to ship anyone. Being able to imagine that the character has X or Y as their sexual kink or as their suppressed desire. But if you don't even give fans enough to work with from the get go, a lot of people don't want to commit the energy to doing ALL the character development themselves.

That'd be my guess, anyway.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_jems_/]

I don't think I can help you, my slash goggles are are broken as yours.

The only thing I can think of is a BNF or group of BNFs latching on to a particular 'ship. BNFs usually mean more quality fic. And as fic goes, so goes the fandom nation, right?

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Aha. This is an interesting insight. I suspect you could be correct.

[elisi]

I think there's a lot of truth in that. I've never been in the HP fandom, but even I know that fanon!Draco is quite different to canon!Draco. I suspect this probably has a lot to do with the gap between books and fans rushing to fill things in...

[worldwasasong.livejournal.com]

If fandom always ships people who hate each other, where’s the Logan/Weevil?
...It's out there. I won't link since it's not your thing :)

Some Chuck/Nate exists too.

As for why no Harry/Ron, I guess because they're so much like brothers, it would be weird. I have no answer to your general "why slash" question though, sorry!

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

But it's not nearly as plentiful as Logan/Veronica or Chuck/Blair, is it? And in some fandoms the slash pairings dominate everything. Hmmm...

But Harry and Hermione seem--to many people--to be like siblings, too, and that doesn't stop there from being a huge fandom. I am confuzzled!

[redsilverchains.livejournal.com]

I wouldn’t call myself a ‘slasher’, but I do have some slash OTPs. And…huh. I just realized that they ALL start off as close friendships.

I think a lot of the time…the characters’ attractiveness has a lot do with it. Like eleusis_walks said, slashers like two pretty boys together. Just ask the anime (yaoi, shonen-ai ) fandom. :p

I mean, take Skins. Tony/Maxxie is more popular than Tony/Sid, even though Tony and Sid are the heterosexual life partners. And yeah, by fangirl standards (ahaha, why do I know these things) Nicholas Hoult and Mitch Hewer are ‘prettier’ than Mike Bailey. And then there’s the popularity of Cook/Freddie, the heterosexual life partners in gen 2. Both played by attractive guys.

Tl;dr last week my little brother was talking about how we had a ‘slasher film’ phase in elementary school, and I was all confused and thinking But- but I didn’t even KNOW what slash was at that time and why the heck would HE be interested in---oh wait. He means films like ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ *mental facepalm*.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Aw! Poor less attractive boys need love, too! *pets Sid*

HAHAHA GREAT STORY.

[anythingbutgrey.livejournal.com]

At least as much textual evidence to support them as to support Harry/Hermione (sorry, Elyssa, but it’s true).

you... don't have to apologize?

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I didn't want to come across as those people who are picking on H/Hr. I know you've gotten a lot of that lately.

[deird1]

For instance. Harry Potter. Why is there not a huge Harry/Ron fandom?

As far as this one goes, I'd make a guess that Cassie Claire's Draco Trilogy was largely at fault, by making Draco Malfoy the person everyone wanted to ship with.


I saw a piece of meta once saying that the reason SGA fandom is so into McKay/Sheppard is that Sheppard is The Main Guy and McKay is The Fan Favourite.

...which would be a good reason for Spike/Xander - in that Xander is pretty much the main male character in the show, and Spike is generally considered to be the fans' favourite male character.

*shrugs*


(Now, if you asked about femslash pairings...)

[next_to_normal]

I saw a piece of meta once saying that the reason SGA fandom is so into McKay/Sheppard is that Sheppard is The Main Guy and McKay is The Fan Favourite.

Yeah, I think that is a pretty foolproof formula for slash. Most pairings (het and slash) seem to come from fans who really love one or both of the characters involved, and The Main Guy and The Fan Favorite are both likely to have a lot of fans, with a fair amount of overlap. If you don't have that fanbase, I think it's more of an uphill battle to generate a following.

[dollsome.livejournal.com]

This is a tricky one! I tend to be super super inclined toward Reading The Gay Into Things, but there are some pairings that are really big -- particularly Harry Potter-wise -- that I just don't understand! Remus/Sirius is definitely the one big Potter slash ship that really really gets me, because I think that it was so easy to read that with a canon slant in books 3-5. But, yeah, Harry and Snape's epic forbidden love, don't get it so much at all! Harry and Draco I guess I get a little bit more -- there were moments when Harry was so obsessed with Draco in HBP where it cracked me up a little because I could tell the slashers would be having a field day. But still, not really my thing at all!

I think that most of the time it's definitely easier for me to get more shippy over the pairs with the big bromances, and I think it's largely because there's an air in epic friendships that that person is the one person who's most important to them -- and it's easy to turn that romantic, because the idea of them having The Most Important Person In Their Life and then a significant other who's not that person can be hard to reconcile. Like, I haven't watched House for a couple seasons now, but the idea of House and Wilson finding love with the ladies kinda bums me out, because -- because they are so destined to be grumpy old man roommates forever! They are each other's Person!

And, okay, this has gotten sort of rambly and possibly I've veered off topic a bit. :D But basically, that kind of bond is what tends to sow the seeds of shippiness for me, so random slash ships based on enmity don't really get me in the same way. (Although I'm sure there's one out there somewhere that I'm just not thinking of that I like! DWIGHT/JIM FOREVER. The world's finest foemance.)

Except Spike and Angel, who are kind of SUPER DUPER OTP. At least that one time.

[blackfrancine.livejournal.com]

I have a theory, and I have NO idea whether it holds any water (particularly because I'm not someone who has delved into slash at all). But I'm just gonna throw it out there.

So. I wonder if for completely non-canon ships (as so many slash ships are), people are drawn to the idea of ~illicit sex. Which, to some extent, slashiness would count as illicit in such heteronormative texts regardless. But. I guess I mean that for non-canon stuff, people are seeking something a little bit deviant. This could be because it's trying to fit in (albeit perhaps subconsciously) with the nature of canon. ie, the non canon sex/ship isn't mentioned in canon not because it doesn't exist, but because it's something that society thinks we should be ashamed of. That the characters themselves would suppress and be ashamed of. They think of it as deviant.

The slash fan, however, wants to explore those darker urges. Wants NOT to be ashamed of them. Wants to disassemble those societal expectations. And the self-loathing that they induce.

So, therefore, the wholesome idea of life partners is less compelling than hate sex.

Just a theory.

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

What? Slash? I don't have slash goggles at all, except for Annie and Britta (and that's femmeslash so it may be a totally different subject) and Sherlock and Watson (because the BBC version smashes you over the head with the bromance).

[snickfic]

Dude. The Inception people managed to make a major ship out of the guy with the suitcase and, uh, that other guy. It is TOTALLY INEXPLICABLE, is what I'm saying.

(Although I'm with eilowyn about Sherlock and the hitting over the head. And also I'd ask why Willow/Anya isn't the non-canon Buffyverse slash ship - behind Faith/Buffy, maybe - except of course there are no pretty boys in it and therefore who cares?)

Ooh, I know! I know what the explanation is! *points to icon*

ETA: I haf prompted thinky thoughts! Yay!

[redsilverchains.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking about that! Eames kicks Arthur that one time and then has that one line about the 'big guns' and then…KABOOM, ship. And fans somehow deducing ‘facts’ about their gender identities. What.

[moonlightrick.livejournal.com]

Given my 20 page paper on qualitative research (blaaaah), I haven't too many thoughts about this, but I've seen my fair share of Harry/Ron (way more than I'd like, though maybe it's an author thing?), but like eleusis_walks mentioned, Draco and Snape (and many other of the other slashed-all-over-the-place male characters) have cult-like fangirls, haha. By dint of the amount of fanfic they get, there is slash. I'm not involved in the TVD fandom, really, but I've seen a disproportionate amount of Tyler/Jeremy (to be fair, hi, "canon"); I've definitely seen a lot of Tim Riggins/Jason Street, actually, and some Logan/Weevil (but in that case, I think the snark- and character-focused writers love their Veronica/Logan). Spike/Xander makes 0 sense to me. I think some writers just like to imagine certain guys together.

As for why some characters get slashed and others don't... Sometimes, the characters really, actually, 100% come off as just friends--my example is always Veronica and Wallace, who are just BFF, but Ron and Harry are definitely another--or one or both of the guys come off as Definitely Straight. Others, either there's something with the character dynamic--possibly a lot of dying-for-each-other-and-snark-for-tea (ie. John & Sherlock)--or it's a focus on one/both of the characters and slashing them like mad at any opportunity. Well, and the want-to-see-two-hot-guys-together thing. That last one really can't be underestimated.

[bobthemole.livejournal.com]

My guess is that the first few popular fics in a fandom's early history may determine the pairings that become popular. I wonder how one could test this...

[ever-neutral.livejournal.com]

SOME EXCELLENT QUESTIONS.

I seem to be getting sucked into Harry Potter fandom yet again (at least on tumblr)

Haha, you too? (Though, I'm not getting sucked in again because I've done a good job of staying away from HP fandom for most of my life. I'm only now seeing the batshit for myself. Tangent.)

Harry Potter. Why is there not a huge Harry/Ron fandom? Heterosexual life partners, here. At least as much textual evidence to support them as to support Harry/Hermione.

Truth. (In my completely subjective view, there's actually more subtext going on with Harry/Ron than H/Hr. You've got Ron having wicked Potter-envy, and Harry moping about Ron after their falling out more than he reacts to ANY GIRL HE SHOWS INTEREST IN, PERIOD. But I'll not go on.) I suppose my answer would be that one is heteronormative and the other's not? I mean, sex of the characters aside, Harry and Ron don't fall into the conventional male/female dynamic Harry and Hermione do. So, I'd say H/Hr is more popular because it has more conventional romantic appeal. Also, as others have said, H/R don't have that potential ~illicit pleasure of mortal enemy pairings like Harry/Draco and, er, Harry/Snape. There has to be a healthy dose of "Because it's wrong."

Then there's the Tony/Sid vs. Tony/Maxxie angle where the latter features two very conventionally attractive boys, whereas Sid - while awfully cute - is less so. I guess you could say the same for the prevalence of Harry/Draco over Harry/Ron? Though, Ron is a bit of a weird one in that while he's depicted as being less conventionally good-looking than Harry, he also seems to be portrayed as having more sexual appeal, as opposed to Harry who has more ~romantic appeal. I don't know if it's the movies that have given me this impression, or maybe the fact that the books are written from Harry's perspective? but it's interesting. USELESS THINGS I PONDER. Actually, no - not useless. There's a point in here -- characters like Harry and Draco are consistently portrayed as having sexual appeal to people of the same sex (in the text), while characters like Ron are depicted as being sexually attractive solely to females. (Unless I'm completely forgetting the instance where such-and-such happened, etc.) So, it's not just that some characters are coded as being attracted to the same sex, it's also about whether characters are attractive to the same sex - or portrayed as such, rather.

IDK, this could well be a load of horseshit, I'm just arguing with myself aloud.

[laeria.livejournal.com]

D'you know what I'd give a kidney to read? Meta on class and slash. Fandom gets shirty discussing class for some reason, so I don't know if there's any anywhere.

See, when I saw there's tons of Spike/Xander, I was a bit surprised and pleased, because, as much as I dislike Xander, he's the only working-class character I've ever seen with a huge slashy following.

I've seen very little Mickey Smith slash, for example. There's criminally little Mickey-fic anyway, but still the lack of slash is conspicious, especially considering there's a canon character likely to pine for him (Jace or whatever his name was, from Pete's world, who was clearly dating Ricky. How much did I love that Ricky was gay? Very much.). And the slash I did read was mostly a painful self-denialy crawling-out-of-the-closet type thing, which I do not enjoy at all.

Ron, now, I've seen Ron-slash. Some of it was awesome. I've seen considerably more Ron-is-a-hateful-homophobe fic though. Or an ambivalent homophobe at the very least. And I do feel it's a class thing. Because only aristocrats are gay, you know. Aristocrats, intellectuals, military people, possibly noble beggars. Ron's poor but not too fond of books or music, and he's also never had to starve or get forced into prostitution, ergo he is doomed for a life of heteronormative heterosexuality and two point four children.

Maybe some fans unwittingly connect working-class folk with homophobia? Or, just, I don't know, are more comfortable writing genteel Wilde-quoting queer characters because it's what they've experienced more? And I'm thinking there's a similar trend concerning race, so I am not in the slightest surprised by the lack of Gunnslash that you mentioned.

[aisalynn.livejournal.com]

Just dropping by to say that I love Mickey/Jake and yes, there is definitely a sad amount of it. Especially when there was a deleted scene that actually had Jake refer to Ricky as his boyfriend. (And I thought it was obvious before the deleted scene, so...) You would think that would sprout loads of slash, but no. *sigh* In any case, Mickey/Jake is pretty much canon in my mind (or at least the idea of there being some kind of messy confused pining on Jake's side, what with Mickey looking exactly like his dead boyfriend and all.)

Also, for some reason, this cracked me up: he's also never had to starve or get forced into prostitution, ergo he is doomed for a life of heteronormative heterosexuality and two point four children. Oh, fandom.

[zombie_boogie.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested to trace the same sorts of patterns with femmeslash. I think there is a decided lack of close female friendships on television (the "bromance" thing is huge, but how many female friendships do you see that are heterosexual life partners? Not enough!). A lot of female relationships on TV seem to be based on enmity or rivalry rather than genuine friendliness or affection, so I see femmeslash going in that direction as well. There are more Buffy/Faith-type pairings than there are Xena/Gabrielle-type pairings.

[aisalynn.livejournal.com]

Well, even as a slash writer there are some pairings I don't get. For instance in the Buffy fandom, yeah, I can sort of see Angel/Spike, even if I don't dig it (I have a problem with Angel's character in general, it makes it hard for me to ship him with anyone.) but Spike/Xander I just don't get at all. Actually, I see more femmeslash in the Buffy fandom than slash.

As for Harry/Ron, when I was in the Harry Potter fandom (and I too, have been feeling a little drawn here lately to that fandom again.) I read a little of it, but mostly I saw them as friends. Actually, for me, it was hard to ship any of the three of them with each other, unless I shipped all of them with each other. I have tendency to love OT3's.

Part of the appeal of slash for me is the puzzle of it. With a lot of canon ships you are hit over the head with the romance--you're not allowed any doubt or uncertainty as to how they feel about each other--Buffy and Angel meet in episode one and it is made painfully obvious that they are going to be portrayed as The Romance, Mal and Inara bicker for the first time in Firefly and you can't escape the fact that the bickering is supposed be Unresolved Sexual Tension. For me, that takes the joy out of the pairing. With most slash pairings you have to look for the little things that might mean something. Was he staring after the other guy too long? What did he mean by that phrase? Why was he paying attention to that anyway?

It's like a game. It's fun. And I like my het pairings the same way. It's why I loved Veronica/Logan so much. Rather than beat the viewers over the head with the romance in the first half of season one, we just get mini-moments between them, just enough to leave a hint, and then Bam. Kiss. It's why I like Buffy and Spike, and Max and Alec as well. So yes, the whole puzzle thing can be said about canon pairings as well (Though Max and Alec was never canon. Shame.) it's just the puzzle is more fun, I think, with slash pairings. There's less obvious stuff there, so you have more freedom to suppose what you want, I guess. And maybe, with slash pairings, that whole puzzle aspect of it is more present in pairings with the whole enmity turning into sex thing?

Also, the puzzle thing might explain why a lot of slashers will seem to pick random guys to slash, even if they barely have any interaction. You get used to having that puzzle there, get into the habit at looking for those little hidden things, at always guessing at the hidden motivation behind every word and action, so if the show/movie/book doesn't give you that puzzle, you go ahead and create it, no matter how much you have to stretch canon to do that.

And then there is the best friend thing. Which I think someone who commented above me, (I can't remember who, sorry, and the comments disappeared from my screen.) explained well. There's the whole Most Important Person thing. You'd think Ron and Harry would fall underneath that, but, again, it seems really hard in my mind to split the three of them up, especially if the most important person thing was the appeal.


So yeah. I'm pretty sure I just rambled on here for like, ever, without any real useful thoughts in this. But I'm going to post it anyway. :) I haven't commented on anything on your journal in a while. (Real life stuff, yuck.)

[shamoogity.livejournal.com]

The only slash couple I have really shipped is Logan/Weevil. I never got why they weren't bigger. Hell, early in season one I was silly enough to think they might become canon. So I have no more insight than you into what's popular. They were so obvious!