McWeir squee, fake!incest rant
Nov. 11th, 2004 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wisdomeagleI think McKay/Weir has entirely destroyed my ability to correctly perceive the characters. It's terrible. And not just to perceive the characters... it's like ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
prillalar was talking about in this post about how she has a few (very few) pairings that she adores so much that she cannot write them as anything other than superficial hearts + flowers + kisses because they are just that wonderful. I'm afraid I've done that with Rodney + Elizabeth. Heck, I've even started calling them by their first names. And I love them so tremendously much. I don't know if I'll ever be capable of writing this pairing rationally without, you know, incessant sap. I've already started thinking that McKay's love for Elizabeth is The Purest Love He's Ever Felt, and that's definitely not a good sign if my goal is something beyond "OMG they're in love SQUEE." And not only in love, but in pure and untainted love.
I mean, this for a man who has said, publicly, to a woman he adores, "Hospital gowns turn me on." And I've got him in such mad raptures of love and respect for Elizabeth that he won't even look at her funny, and I'm going with the "never felt this way about anyone before" thing, and I'm beginning to think I broke my objectivity.
But, but, but... is R/E! McWeir! Rodney McKay + Elizabeth Weir! ♥ ! How could I possibly be objective?
Do you see now why regardless of how much you love me, you shouldn't envy my girlfriend? She had to listen to babble like this for about three hours the other night, only slightly less comprehensible.
So, I have some fandom-related thoughts about incest. Not actual incest for the most part, but the argument against certain pairings on the basis that they're "OMG incest ewwww."
[talking, naturally enough, about Sam/Daniel and about Giles/Scoobies, as those are the only examples I can think of. Oh, and also Sam/Cassie.]
Sibcest
I just don't get it. I don't get why this should be a valid argument. To me, the reason that sibcest is taboo is
1) Biology makes it unwise. Well, fair enough, but this obviously doesn't apply in terms of Sam/Daniel. Because they are not actually siblings. They do not actually have any more genetics in common than your average random pair of people.
2) They grew up together, ew! Having a sister myself, I totally understand this. Sort of. On the one hand, I changed her diapers, ew. But really, how much of a taboo is this? Aren't "childhood sweethearts" just the sweetest thing? Didn't Willow (who'd known Xander forever) have a crush on Xander? And in Thy Brother's Wife by Andrew Greeley, Nora Cronin is raised as Sean and Paul's sister, but isn't legally adopted, so she marries Paul (and is lusted after by Seansince this is before he met Blackie). And yeah, it's a bit, er... odd, but I certainly wouldn't say it's the squickiest thing that ever did squick.
But I think what lies at the root of the sibcest complaint has nothing to with literal siblings and everything to do with Sameness and Difference. What people are really saying when they say, "But Sam and Daniel are like brother and sister!" is "They are so similar that the mere thought of them in the same bed together is not so much repulsive as redundant." No one seems actually squicked by the idea the way they are by literal twincest, but I think the idea behind the objection is that romance should be built on difference, not similarity. Perhaps it's me being gay (and a gay woman at that, which is different from being a gay man), but for me, romance is built on similarity first. Lots and lots of similarity that attracts two people to each other first of all, and then of course people are different, but I have never really found difference to be much of a turn-on. Mostly, it just makes things more difficult.
I suppose I do see that two people who are exactly the same wouldn't make a very interesting couple, and I've always held that me and my girl, for being so similar, are the most boring possible couple to the outside world, but I just see Sam and Daniel as different enough -- and those differences are played from the very beginning. *points to "Thor's Hammer"*) that it's not really a valid argument.
Actually, I think that on the theory that difference leads to tension leads to sexual tension, any couple you could name (except literal twincest) has enough difference for that tension to occur. For frell's sake, Sam and Daniel are of different genders (naturally, Sam is a butch woman and Daniel is a femme man. *is just kidding. Sam is very feminine*). If that doesn't inspire enough Otherness, then, uh, I think I misunderstood the whole point of heterosexuality.
But let me step aside from the Sam/Daniel thing for a minute and mention some other pairings that I've heard argued against on the basis of the characters being too similar. One is McGonagall/Hermione. *gasp* I can think of lots of arguments against this (absolutely adorable and ENTIRELY UNDERWRITTEN) pairing, including the 80-year age difference, but the similarity between them is not one of them. But when I think about it, they do have an awful lot in common; that's one of the reasons why I 'ship them so fervently.
I think I have a sibcest kink. I think that friendship leads to the best kinds of relationships, and that the best kinds of friendship are based on lots of similarities. I'm not big on Huge Massive Romances Between Unequals, unless of course there's an intentional massive power kink, in which case I wibble like a schoolgirl. Which brings me directly to point two...
Parentchildcest
Again, I'm not speaking of literal parent/childcest, except by means of comparison. Why is it squicky?
1) Genetics. Again, not applicable.
2) But your parents raised you. Hence why adopted parents are just as inappropriate as sex partners as biological parents are. Again, not applicable. Here, I think the issue is not so much that they raised you to be just like them (which is the issue with sibcest) but that their raising of you means there are huge, nasty power issues. Mmm, power-- okay, but let's try to be rational about this. Your parents being your parents is squicky because, well, they're you're parents. I think most of us share the same basic level of squick at their being your parents, i.e., the people who raised you from a spud.
Giles. Is. Not. Buffy's. Father. (Or mother, for that matter.)
Giles. Is. Not. Willow's. Father. (Or Xander's, or Oz's, or Anya's, or Tara's, or Cordelia's.)
Sam is not Cassie's mother. Janet is.
Jack is not Cassie's father. She doesn't have one anymore. (It's not Daniel either.)
Sirius is Harry's godfather.
But, you will argue, they are like enough to their parents to make it equally as squicky. Nonsense, I tell you. And here's the part where my personal experience tells me with every ounce of my being that people who are like parents to me are way, way cooler than my actual parents are by virtue of being, well, not!parents. And by cooler, I mean way sexier.
So, okay, here's the thing. It's canon that Willow has a crush on Giles sometime in S1-S4, right? Probably S1 or S2. And then in "Grave," she calls him her father! How messed up is that? But, uh, not really, because Giles is not the father of the Scoobies. He's something of a father figure sometimes, but that is entirely different. There is a big difference between any old adult in one's life and an actual surrogate parent.
Buffy is a surrogate parent to Dawn, and also her sibling, so 'ship between them really is incest proper, on multiple levels. And Janet really is Cassie's mother. Sam is not. Unless you are writing in an AU where Sam and Janet are not only lovers but actually living in the same house, then Sam is not a mother to Cassie. A really close adult? Yes. But not a mother, not literally.
Whether that would make much of a difference to Sam, I don't know. But it makes a huge difference for Cassie. She is free to think of Sam in ways she would never think of Janet on account of Janet being her mother.
My point is not that there aren't issues (read, vast age differences) to be overcome in any of these pairings, but that the simple argument "but he's her father!" is inaccurate and the argument "but she's like a mother to her!" is insufficient.
The idea that people can only be one thing to each other, and only ever one thing, is simply not true.
So I merrily 'ship my Sam/Daniel and my Willow/Giles and my Sam/Cassie and in fact every pairing under the sun that isn't Weir/Sheppard or Jack/Sam and you can't tell me it's incest, because it's not.
*blather*
sooper sekrit to Gvambat: 72% !!!
prillalar was talking about in this post about how she has a few (very few) pairings that she adores so much that she cannot write them as anything other than superficial hearts + flowers + kisses because they are just that wonderful. I'm afraid I've done that with Rodney + Elizabeth. Heck, I've even started calling them by their first names. And I love them so tremendously much. I don't know if I'll ever be capable of writing this pairing rationally without, you know, incessant sap. I've already started thinking that McKay's love for Elizabeth is The Purest Love He's Ever Felt, and that's definitely not a good sign if my goal is something beyond "OMG they're in love SQUEE." And not only in love, but in pure and untainted love. I mean, this for a man who has said, publicly, to a woman he adores, "Hospital gowns turn me on." And I've got him in such mad raptures of love and respect for Elizabeth that he won't even look at her funny, and I'm going with the "never felt this way about anyone before" thing, and I'm beginning to think I broke my objectivity.
But, but, but... is R/E! McWeir! Rodney McKay + Elizabeth Weir! ♥ ! How could I possibly be objective?
Do you see now why regardless of how much you love me, you shouldn't envy my girlfriend? She had to listen to babble like this for about three hours the other night, only slightly less comprehensible.
So, I have some fandom-related thoughts about incest. Not actual incest for the most part, but the argument against certain pairings on the basis that they're "OMG incest ewwww."
[talking, naturally enough, about Sam/Daniel and about Giles/Scoobies, as those are the only examples I can think of. Oh, and also Sam/Cassie.]
Sibcest
I just don't get it. I don't get why this should be a valid argument. To me, the reason that sibcest is taboo is
1) Biology makes it unwise. Well, fair enough, but this obviously doesn't apply in terms of Sam/Daniel. Because they are not actually siblings. They do not actually have any more genetics in common than your average random pair of people.
2) They grew up together, ew! Having a sister myself, I totally understand this. Sort of. On the one hand, I changed her diapers, ew. But really, how much of a taboo is this? Aren't "childhood sweethearts" just the sweetest thing? Didn't Willow (who'd known Xander forever) have a crush on Xander? And in Thy Brother's Wife by Andrew Greeley, Nora Cronin is raised as Sean and Paul's sister, but isn't legally adopted, so she marries Paul (and is lusted after by Sean
But I think what lies at the root of the sibcest complaint has nothing to with literal siblings and everything to do with Sameness and Difference. What people are really saying when they say, "But Sam and Daniel are like brother and sister!" is "They are so similar that the mere thought of them in the same bed together is not so much repulsive as redundant." No one seems actually squicked by the idea the way they are by literal twincest, but I think the idea behind the objection is that romance should be built on difference, not similarity. Perhaps it's me being gay (and a gay woman at that, which is different from being a gay man), but for me, romance is built on similarity first. Lots and lots of similarity that attracts two people to each other first of all, and then of course people are different, but I have never really found difference to be much of a turn-on. Mostly, it just makes things more difficult.
I suppose I do see that two people who are exactly the same wouldn't make a very interesting couple, and I've always held that me and my girl, for being so similar, are the most boring possible couple to the outside world, but I just see Sam and Daniel as different enough -- and those differences are played from the very beginning. *points to "Thor's Hammer"*) that it's not really a valid argument.
Actually, I think that on the theory that difference leads to tension leads to sexual tension, any couple you could name (except literal twincest) has enough difference for that tension to occur. For frell's sake, Sam and Daniel are of different genders (naturally, Sam is a butch woman and Daniel is a femme man. *is just kidding. Sam is very feminine*). If that doesn't inspire enough Otherness, then, uh, I think I misunderstood the whole point of heterosexuality.
But let me step aside from the Sam/Daniel thing for a minute and mention some other pairings that I've heard argued against on the basis of the characters being too similar. One is McGonagall/Hermione. *gasp* I can think of lots of arguments against this (absolutely adorable and ENTIRELY UNDERWRITTEN) pairing, including the 80-year age difference, but the similarity between them is not one of them. But when I think about it, they do have an awful lot in common; that's one of the reasons why I 'ship them so fervently.
I think I have a sibcest kink. I think that friendship leads to the best kinds of relationships, and that the best kinds of friendship are based on lots of similarities. I'm not big on Huge Massive Romances Between Unequals, unless of course there's an intentional massive power kink, in which case I wibble like a schoolgirl. Which brings me directly to point two...
Parentchildcest
Again, I'm not speaking of literal parent/childcest, except by means of comparison. Why is it squicky?
1) Genetics. Again, not applicable.
2) But your parents raised you. Hence why adopted parents are just as inappropriate as sex partners as biological parents are. Again, not applicable. Here, I think the issue is not so much that they raised you to be just like them (which is the issue with sibcest) but that their raising of you means there are huge, nasty power issues. Mmm, power-- okay, but let's try to be rational about this. Your parents being your parents is squicky because, well, they're you're parents. I think most of us share the same basic level of squick at their being your parents, i.e., the people who raised you from a spud.
Giles. Is. Not. Buffy's. Father. (Or mother, for that matter.)
Giles. Is. Not. Willow's. Father. (Or Xander's, or Oz's, or Anya's, or Tara's, or Cordelia's.)
Sam is not Cassie's mother. Janet is.
Jack is not Cassie's father. She doesn't have one anymore. (It's not Daniel either.)
Sirius is Harry's godfather.
But, you will argue, they are like enough to their parents to make it equally as squicky. Nonsense, I tell you. And here's the part where my personal experience tells me with every ounce of my being that people who are like parents to me are way, way cooler than my actual parents are by virtue of being, well, not!parents. And by cooler, I mean way sexier.
So, okay, here's the thing. It's canon that Willow has a crush on Giles sometime in S1-S4, right? Probably S1 or S2. And then in "Grave," she calls him her father! How messed up is that? But, uh, not really, because Giles is not the father of the Scoobies. He's something of a father figure sometimes, but that is entirely different. There is a big difference between any old adult in one's life and an actual surrogate parent.
Buffy is a surrogate parent to Dawn, and also her sibling, so 'ship between them really is incest proper, on multiple levels. And Janet really is Cassie's mother. Sam is not. Unless you are writing in an AU where Sam and Janet are not only lovers but actually living in the same house, then Sam is not a mother to Cassie. A really close adult? Yes. But not a mother, not literally.
Whether that would make much of a difference to Sam, I don't know. But it makes a huge difference for Cassie. She is free to think of Sam in ways she would never think of Janet on account of Janet being her mother.
My point is not that there aren't issues (read, vast age differences) to be overcome in any of these pairings, but that the simple argument "but he's her father!" is inaccurate and the argument "but she's like a mother to her!" is insufficient.
The idea that people can only be one thing to each other, and only ever one thing, is simply not true.
So I merrily 'ship my Sam/Daniel and my Willow/Giles and my Sam/Cassie and in fact every pairing under the sun that isn't Weir/Sheppard or Jack/Sam and you can't tell me it's incest, because it's not.
*blather*
sooper sekrit to Gvambat: 72% !!!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-12 03:44 am (UTC)Note one: Personally, I find the idea of metaphorical sibcest like Daniel/Sam much more squicky than literal sibcest like Fujicest... or, gods help me, Beka/Raif or something (...trying to think of a scifidom comparison...) >_<. Maybe b/c my fangirl's all twisted and completely all over same/common backgrounds/blood ties drawing people into nice self-destructive relationships that they can't escape from.... (instead of me blathering on, just read N.P. by Banana Yoshimoto XP) or even fluffy smut that's just delicious b/c they have the deeper connection of a typically shared childhood in literal 'cest; & my real-life knee-jerk reaction to a nice, very close, platonic relationship is to *keep it that way*, because it's so much safer and appropriate and less generating of guilt. But that's me.
In animedom, at least, sibcest is often a way to strengthen the characters' attachments & so incite them to more extremes of emotion (i.e. Angel Sanctuary, all other Yuki Kaori, strong CLAMP hints in CCS, etc...), which I'm all over. XP
Note two: "Actually, I think that on the theory that difference leads to tension leads to sexual tension, any couple you could name (except literal twincest)"
DUDE.... not only are the anime Kisarazucest and Fushigi Yuugi twinness generally written as very rivalish/USTful b/c one twin gets all pissed about the miniscule differences his brother is starting to display, I've read some "Matrix" twin fic that also goes towards the very rivalish/UST. Have I mentioned how much I like rivalsmut &twincesty goodness?
Note 3: Parentcesty... I think I'll cut short the gushing about amae and the significant differences in family dynamics usually portrayed in Japanese lit./media, and just say that we may not like it because we're encouraged most of our lives to break away from our parents; we're not supposed to desire to either be or have our parents, but establish fully individual lives. Blah.
...Ummm....that kinda got really chopped up and scaled down once I'm retyping this in my room. & my fangirl wars w/my academic, so I hope some of this is vaguely coherent... o_O
ehhhh, I'm probly on too much crack to think at all anyway. XP Get to that homework! (& don't worry, we're safely ensconced in the room now. Won't assault your window again) :3
<3
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-12 04:04 am (UTC)And my reaction is almost always just the opposite. Oh, I tell myself "no, no, we're just close friends, no need to..." *bam* *UST* *angst* Perhaps it's not the smartest thing to do, but it's what I always do. I suppose that's why friendship cum romance is one of my biggest fic!kinks.
I mostly take a nothing-is-sacred attitude, pairingwise... no relationship is so perfect and pure in canon that it can't become kinky, nasty, wrong!romance/sex in fic... except John/Chi. (There are other pairings I don't like, but I think that's the only one I don't like because I value their friendship too much.)
Uhh, literal sibcest in sci-fi.... Chi/Nirri and John/Olivia are springing to mind... *odd twitchy look* Sam/Mark, but since we never actually see Mark...
The only literal twincest I'm famililar with is Fred/George (HP) and I haven't read anywhere near a lot of it, but I see it as just so much sameness. Like glorified wank!fic.
And Padma/Pavarti (also from HP) I think is usually portrayed, at least pre-Hogwarts, as just so right it was never wrong... the angst doesn't happen until after they get to Hogwarts and Sorted into different houses and then it's no longer assumed and there is no more snuggling in the same bed... sigh... P/P is a secret love, I think. :p
Uhh, I guess another question would be clones/FS "twins", etc. John/John is all rivalry, Jack/Jack are about to kill each other (literally)... the only sci-fi clones I actually 'ship are Sam/tin!Sam. It's literal science twins yum! And, uh, vamp!Willow/human!Willow... and Angel/Angelus... the clone relationships usually at least start out as rivalries in canon... but yeah. *tangenty*
Your notes on parentcest are entirely too academic and make too much sense. *lures you to the delightful evilness of Farscape!Jack/John*
Eww, homework. *dies* I can do it during my break! Really! It's just reading about gender and whatnot.
:p
<3
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-26 03:48 am (UTC)And Padma/Pavarti (also from HP) I think is usually portrayed, at least pre-Hogwarts, as just so right it was never wrong...
Hmmm, yes. From what I've gathered from HP through osmosis, F/G and P/P do act very much more like the Cuckoos than Hallie/Annie, being more caricatures. But then we get into what I've said with the Cuckoos--that the very purity of the archetype is part of the appeal.
I don't usually truck with "Guys like lesbians because they want to imagine getting with both of them at the same time" explanations, because it doesn't match my experience at all--but I do think that in extreme cases of twincest the interchangeability of the subjects becomes part of the kink. I'm not sure how that works.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-27 03:16 am (UTC)the interchangeability of the subjects becomes part of the kink. I'm not sure how that works.
Me neither. I'm thinking on it.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-12 09:16 am (UTC)It's not just you being gay. I feel the same way, and I'm straight. *grin* I like to say, "opposites may attract, but commmonalities last." A romance that's not built on SOME common ground has nothing to stand on once the original OMGhe/shesohot! wears off.
Giles. Is. Not. Buffy's. Father. (Or mother, for that matter.)
Giles. Is. Not. Willow's. Father. (Or Xander's, or Oz's, or Anya's, or Tara's, or Cordelia's.)
Sam is not Cassie's mother. Janet is.
Jack is not Cassie's father. She doesn't have one anymore. (It's not Daniel either.)
Sirius is Harry's godfather.
To me it has nothing to do with whether the elder character in the pairing is a parental figure, it's that they're an AUTHORITY figure. I'll 'ship May/December romances all the time, but never when I feel like the older character has authority over the younger one. So I won't 'ship Buffy/Giles for the same reason I won't 'ship Jack/Sam, because there's an ingrained inequality in the relationship in that the younger of the two EXPECTS to be told what to do by the other. It's why I've often said that I don't think Sam would ever be able to shake that mindset in a relationship.
But I will 'ship Giles/Anya because not only is she not really younger than him (she's over 1000 years old, for crying out loud!), but she's *also* never treated him as someone with authority over her. They were partners in the Magic Box by the time Giles left, which is a much more equal relationship than boss/employee or teacher/student or CO/subordinate. I will continue to 'ship Daniel/Sam even though Sam's now in command of SG-1 because the nature of their relationship was established before that, and because Daniel's never had the military mindset anyway. ;-) I will 'ship Wolverine/Rogue because in the movieverse he never taught at the school and never TOLD her what to do (except when he first threw her out of his truck, but then he changed his mind ;-) ), so while she may have looked up to him and respected him as a friend, he was never an authority figure.
Does that help? :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-12 08:14 pm (UTC)And there is a whole rant about age difference vs. generation gap in the Jossverse re: Anya, Angel, and Spike, but I won't get into that here!
boss/employee or teacher/student or CO/subordinate
See, all those things are just yummy to me, but to each the own which belongs to each! That's what makes fandom fun.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-19 11:14 pm (UTC)I'm sorta coming late to the party and all, only having seen through S6 (and now we're trying to get caught up on Alias before January, so S7's still off in the future somewhere). Isn't it in Beneath the Surface where the first thing Sam remembers isn't that he's Jack, the love of her life :makes exaggerated smooching noises:, but Col. O'Neil, her boss?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-12 09:22 am (UTC)But hey...if you think about it, it's not really surprising either. After all, Elizabeth is one of the first people in McKay's life who treated HIM with unconditional respect, so it doesn't surprise me that she's earned the same from him in return.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-12 08:15 pm (UTC)Oooh, that just made me go all squishy inside. <3 them so much... may I quote you in my essay for
But Shep/Weir still makes me twitch. :p
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-20 10:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-12 04:28 pm (UTC)I love intimate tenderness, and have a sibcest kink in particular in terms of that idea of the sibling being the person closest to you, the one who can best understand you, who is in some senses an extension of yourself. I blame Angela Carter's " 'Tis Pity She's a Whore" for this entirely.
I think a lot of people just squick at the whole family ties thing, that there's isn't even necessarily an articulate rationale behind it, but people just hit a wall. Though you're right that the power dynamics definitely play a major role in the squick factor. One of my other kinks is a reverse-Lolita (i need to come up with a better phrase for that) i.e. the little girl initiating activity with the older male -- not that other powerlay can't be fun, too, and i'm getting off-topic, so i'll just leave you with a snippet from the thing i may or may not end up writing:
Cordelia: “How could he [Giles] not be a little bit in love with you?”
Buffy: “Um, the whole father-figure thing for one.”
Cordelia: “True enough. But it’s not like he was around for the whole diapers stage or anything. You were full-blown teenager when you walked into his life.”
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-12 08:11 pm (UTC)Well, when you listed McGonagall/Hermione AND Willow/Giles in your fandomwishlist thingie, I decided that you must have stolen my brain and would like it back please thank you VERY much. :p
I think the oddest thing I figured out while writing this is that my fake!sibcest kink and my fake!parentcest kink are exact opposites: the sibcest is someone so close, so same, that the risk is that there's no tension at all, it's just all... melty. And then the parentcest is SO MUCH POWER which is why it's all fun.
And ooh, that quote is all shiny-like. :p
. One of my other kinks is a reverse-Lolita (i need to come up with a better phrase for that) i.e. the little girl initiating activity with the older male -- not that other powerlay can't be fun, too
I think it's just all fun. Especially f/f. The HP fandom frustrates me incessantly because there's almost no f/f chan. *weeps* But yay, power!kink.
*uses verywrong!lolicon icon again*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-12 08:47 pm (UTC)I think the oddest thing I figured out while writing this is that my fake!sibcest kink and my fake!parentcest kink are exact opposites: the sibcest is someone so close, so same, that the risk is that there's no tension at all, it's just all... melty. And then the parentcest is SO MUCH POWER which is why it's all fun.
Yeah, i was thinking similar things. And speaking of powerplay [i totally misspelled that as "powerlay" in my original comment, didn't i?] and McGonagall/Hermione and the lack of f/f in HP... have you read
And ooh, that quote is all shiny-like. :p
:) Does that mean i'm now obligated to actually write the piece?
THANK YOU for this rant!
Date: 2004-11-15 02:51 pm (UTC)Something else I've noticed that you haven't touched upon deals with sexual mores. There seems to be a great deal more forgiveness for "parentchildcest" when it is slash than in het. I think many people assume that there will always be some degree of powerplay between couples of different ages (which I disagree with, but ah well), and that this is not okay in het relationships. If the male partner seems more powerful then the writer must be anti-feminist; if the male partner seems weaker than the woman then he is emasculated. And yet, these same writers have absolutely no problem with having one woman being more butch than the other and very much in control of the relationship, or one man more girly than the other and always, always ALWAYS bottoming. Writers who want to explore power issues but who are too frightened to do so in a het relationship revel in "parentchildcest" slash fics. Harry Potter is FILLED with these fics, and they are often written by people who make a big production of the fact that they are revolted by het fics.
What I think it really comes down to is that each character needs to be evaluated individually and every relationship needs to be treated as unique. Applying universal rules like "all slash/het is bad" or "all cross-generational stories are good/bad" completely misses the point of what fanfic can and should be. I like your posts because it is clear that you get this even when talking about your OTPs.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-20 03:08 am (UTC)It's not you being gay. I'm straight and the same way.
Have you read that article on gay marriage by Orson Scott Card (http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2004-02-15-1.html)?
Well, I'll save your blood pressure and skip to the interesting bit:
a man and a woman come together as strangers and their natural impulses remain at odds throughout their lives, requiring constant compromise, suppression of natural desires, and an unending effort to learn how to get through the intersexual swamp.
Um, if this is the purpose of marriage?
I should've married a woman.
DH and I have always said that by the time we're grandparents, the only way our descendants will be able to tell us apart is the height difference.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-20 03:13 am (UTC)I think perhaps difference makes for exciting first encounters, but it's similarity that makes for lasting relationships.
*goes off to read article and get high blood pressure*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-27 06:27 am (UTC)Sam/Daniel was always my het pairing, because like you said, they're enough alike to have a foundation and just different enough to keep things interesting (I guess I've always thought of it in the sense that they might not understand each other's chosen field or speciality, but they understand the passion behind it, and I can see that translating into the bedroom very easily). I honestly don't get the squick factor at all. So they're a lot a like? Does that automatically negate any sexual desire?
Anyway, it was nice to know someone else is thinking the same things I am ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-27 07:48 am (UTC)So, yay! Thanks for stopping by.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-27 09:28 am (UTC)and omgtheyare*totally*sooohot
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-26 03:41 am (UTC)I'd probably go so far as to say that only telepathic twincest, like Laz/Lor from Heinlein or, to use an example you'd recognize, Cuckoocest, lacks that difference necessary for sexual tension. I think even Annie/Hallie has enough difference to achive sexual tension.
I think I have a sibcest kink.
*looks away innocently*
I think that friendship leads to the best kinds of relationships, and that the best kinds of friendship are based on lots of similarities.
Absolutely agreed that that's (one of) the appeal(s) of sibcest.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-27 12:22 am (UTC)On the other hand, many identical twins in fiction -- even ones who grew up together -- have different and even opposite persionality traits. Which makes for tension. Which is hot.