Shane Little wrote:
Yes, he's a fifth columnist working for me.
Apparently in deep cover, given that she's a "she". (Being a well-balanced cat, she also eats gen, not to mention a wide variety of other literature, plus occasional sewing patterns and cardboard boxes.)
I've been racking my brains to think of a context in which eating slugs is considered good, and drawing a blank.
Someone out there eats the damned things -- one of my sisters actually found canned ones once. Slugs, not snails. Probably about the same, nutritionally, and less work 'cause you don't have to pull them out of the shells...
You did say you found the politics boring, and Neil is a very political writer.
I also said I don't care for PWPs, most of which I *also* find boring, as I do quite a bit of other fiction. And that when I'm reading for entertainment, I don't tend to read stuff that bores me. Why is this some sort of issue? In neither case does it make any comment whatsoever about the overall worth of the stories in question, which may well appeal to plenty of other people and which are welcome to do so.
I may not entirely like slash that's got a political or narrative point to it, but I'm willing to respect the writer's intention.
I'm sure that slash writers everywhere will heave a sigh of relief on hearing that.
But PWPs don't seem to have much merit beyond a wank, and not a good one at that.
You are not in a position to judge the quality of anyone else's wank. And why *should* they have any further merit? Is this some sort of Puritan stricture that anything fun is bad unless you're also Learning Something Worthwhile?
And they _are_ a lot more visible than the more thoughtful stuff, you must admit.
Well, no; I hadn't thought of them as being so -- I tend to regard PWPs as trivia and not pay much attention to them, unless they have something to recommend them other than descriptions of sex.
The point is that something that's really not representative of B7 fanfic as a whole seems to be becoming the dominant sort, and that's not allowing much of a voice to the other sorts.
I haven't seen any stats, so I don't know how slash compares with gen in terms of B7 fanfic output these days. However, I know there are some good gen writers out there who are still producing, and no one's trying to stop them and tell them to go write slash instead. If people are interested in writing gen, they will. If they're not, they won't.
Politics is human relations writ large.
Whereas what I'm interested in reading about is more human relations writ small (i.e., between specific individuals.)
If the relationships in slash aren't realistic, then it seems to me it's a bad place to go looking for fiction about relationships.
If they're not realistic (which is sometimes but not always the case), it might be a bad place to go looking for fiction about *realistic* relationships. Which I'm not, so the point is pretty much irrelevant. Stark realism is fairly low on my fiction-reading list in any case, and most of the characters about whom I'm reading fanfic weren't too realistic to start with. Now, the relationships do have to be *believable*, in the context of the characters *as I see them* (please note pronoun and emphasis), for me to enjoy the story, but that's not quite the same thing as "realistic".
No, but they're not gay.
Your personal interpretation of the characters has been duly noted.
A lot of slash I've seen has nothing to do with gay lifestyles at all, just with titillation.
Again, why is this a problem? It's not *meant* to be making statements about "gay lifestyles", so why would you expect it to? It's not pretending to be anything it isn't. And yes, some of it is indeed concerned primarily with titillation. Some of it isn't. So what?
Yes, true, but we're not talking about the deeper stuff.
Well, maybe *you* aren't.
Then perhaps I'm just being prejudiced,
I would say that you are making some very broad general judgements based on very limited knowledge and a narrow focus. That does tend to lead to fallacious conclusions, or at least a biased outlook.
As I said, I've grown to respect many of the slash writers and readers on this lyst-- but I have to admit that slash fandom's extreme wing strikes me as nastier than gen fandom's extreme wing.
A lot of slash fans have faced some *very* nasty, vicious, and repressive behavior from anti-slashers with a thought-police agenda, in many fandoms and over a long period, and some have developed a siege mentality and a tendency to lash back in anger. Personally, I regard that as unfortunate and counter-productive, but probably inevitable. However, I speak only for myself, and leave others to do the same; they do not speak for me.
Most anti-slash people don't read it, but we are aware of it and affected by it.
Being aware of and affected by other people's opinions and activities is a fact of life when living on the same planet with a whole lot of other people. Again, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. I don't think you're suggesting that people with different opinions should go crawl into holes and pretend they don't exist, so you don't have to deal with being aware of them, but I can't make out what you *are* suggesting. Personally, I'd be glad to settle for peaceful co-existence.
- Lisa
-- Lisa Williams: lcw@dallas.net or lwilliams@raytheon.com Lisa's Video Frame Capture Library: http://framecaplib.com/ From Eroica With Love: http://eroicafans.org/