Slash: Take It or Leave It
Dec. 30th, 2008 08:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
author_by_nightNote to certain flister: This is not only related to my comment last night. It's more like... the comment I made made me think of an entry I've needed to make for a while now. (Of course, I probably have written about this before and forgot... forgive me if I have.)
I've noticed that a lot of times in fandom, I see the following question: "do you like slash?"
I'm all for homosexual relationships, both in fanfiction/fanart and in real life. If you tell me you ship Harry/Draco, I will admit that it's not my cup of tea; however, it's not because the thought of Harry Potter characters being gay repulses me. It's because I simply don't see Harry and Draco as ever falling in love, or having any sort of sexual relationship. I also stick to mainly canon pairings, meaning that in my mind, it's only ever going to be Ginny.
The same goes for certain popular Firefly pairings. I've noticed that a lot of Firefly fans seem to ship Simon/Mal; while this may not be typical of the fandom, that's what I've noticed. However, my brain immediately jumps to, "wait - what about Inara and Kaylee?" when I see the ship.*
Does this mean I dislike slash? No. I simply don't like a lot of slash pairings out there.
Harry Potter now has one canon slash pairing, if you consider interviews canon: Dumbledore/Grindlewald. This is a pairing I'd love to read, if I could find any fic on it. It's so... tragic love.
Finally, I want to say this: I'm not entirely sure I understand the difference between het and slash. If you asked me "do you like het?", I would've given you the same answer: there's a lot of popular pairings I don't read or understand, but I have no problem with het as a whole. In my mind, slash just happens to involve two men or two women; het happens to involve one man and one woman. Why does it matter which it is, when it comes to shipping?
I don't like a lot of pairings. Doesn't matter what gender the second person is. What matters is how much I can enjoy reading about that pairing, gay, straight, or bisexual.
* Of course, this is Whedonverse we're talking about, and from what I've seen of Whedonverse, he does like his characters to "jump ship" quite a bit, so perhaps it's not that implausible.
I've noticed that a lot of times in fandom, I see the following question: "do you like slash?"
I'm all for homosexual relationships, both in fanfiction/fanart and in real life. If you tell me you ship Harry/Draco, I will admit that it's not my cup of tea; however, it's not because the thought of Harry Potter characters being gay repulses me. It's because I simply don't see Harry and Draco as ever falling in love, or having any sort of sexual relationship. I also stick to mainly canon pairings, meaning that in my mind, it's only ever going to be Ginny.
The same goes for certain popular Firefly pairings. I've noticed that a lot of Firefly fans seem to ship Simon/Mal; while this may not be typical of the fandom, that's what I've noticed. However, my brain immediately jumps to, "wait - what about Inara and Kaylee?" when I see the ship.*
Does this mean I dislike slash? No. I simply don't like a lot of slash pairings out there.
Harry Potter now has one canon slash pairing, if you consider interviews canon: Dumbledore/Grindlewald. This is a pairing I'd love to read, if I could find any fic on it. It's so... tragic love.
Finally, I want to say this: I'm not entirely sure I understand the difference between het and slash. If you asked me "do you like het?", I would've given you the same answer: there's a lot of popular pairings I don't read or understand, but I have no problem with het as a whole. In my mind, slash just happens to involve two men or two women; het happens to involve one man and one woman. Why does it matter which it is, when it comes to shipping?
I don't like a lot of pairings. Doesn't matter what gender the second person is. What matters is how much I can enjoy reading about that pairing, gay, straight, or bisexual.
* Of course, this is Whedonverse we're talking about, and from what I've seen of Whedonverse, he does like his characters to "jump ship" quite a bit, so perhaps it's not that implausible.
