And now for fun...

[anotherusedpage]

Bloody essays. Bloody bastard essays.

It's sixteen months or so since I last had to sit down an write an essay and now I've actually got to do it.

And I havn't had the chance to write anything (non work related) for over a week. That's probably the longest I've been in YEARS without writing anything, either my own stuff or fanfiction of one discription or another. And I STILL havn't managed to do Anna's beta-ing.

And my essay sucks. Hang on, I've already mentioned that. Pah.

So, to do today...

1) Wash last night's red hair spray out of hair.
2) Tidy room
3) Sort out lecture list
4) Do washing. Oh shit, and last nights washing up...
5) Go to library. Find secondary material on 'the Dramatic Monologue as a poetry form'.
5) Write essay. I WILL write the essay.

Why doesn't this course have a unit on 'the literary value of footy-slash'? On second thoughts, don't answer that.

Oh. And any of you that feel like being friendly can go say hi to my friend opertunemoment who's new around here. Not a footy fan in any way shape or form, but prepared to drool over Becks, Pires and assorted others, and read anything I force her to.

Comments

[lucy-lupin.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the literary value of foot slash, but if you took media studies or psychology you could probably write something on why girls (many of whom are straight) want to write slash about male characters, many of whom are also straight. Which I will do when I get the time, along with the essay interpreting different Hogwarts professors teaching styles. My theories on the appeal of slash are:

1. Chance to transcend traditional gender relationships
2. Two for the price of one (two hot men together and no female love interest to negatively compare self to)
3. It tends to be more humourous than non-slash fics (or at least the Harry Potter ones I've read are)
4. People who write slash are usually older, and therefore better writers
5. Seems to be more focused on sex than hetero fics (possibly because with two male characters, the whole "slut" - which is a word I hate - question is removed). Unfortunately there's still a perception that males can get away with more physically than females. Therefore for a smutfic, slash is ideal
6. Contraception/pregnancy does not have to be dealt with, thus cutting down on any pesky and necessary realism
7. My tired brain cannot recall the rest :)

[uberwald.livejournal.com]

*nods vigorously*

1) is the theory I feel most kinship with. Writing slash allows you to concentrate a relationship as something between two individuals, rather than something that has the cumulative pressure of a couple of millennia worth of gender politics piled on top of it.

Also for myself, I can relate to slash more in a way because I tend to think of my own personality as being quite...blokeish. Not that I don't have my girlie days, and 'tomboy' wouldn't be accurate cos I'm not that active, but I do tend to gravitate towards more traditionally 'masculine' modes of behaviour. Although in my case it's masculine as in 'chap' rather than 'lad', and 'lad' is what I mostly write about, so go figure.

I also think the 'it just floats my boat' theory should never be forgotten ;)

[opportunemoment.livejournal.com]

Personally it's probably number two... the eyecandy factor and the adorableness factor is what makes it for me. That and the boat floating.
Hi, by the way, I'm Rosie, anotherusedpage's random friend. I'm not particularly interested in football as a game, but being a slash fan anotherusedpage keeps me updated on the players' exploits. :)

[uberwald.livejournal.com]

hullo Rosie :)

I'm sort of backing into slash via football. In that I definitely had the slash gene, but only started being active about it cos footie's such a small fandom I could pop up and wave without feeling swamped. I'm starting to find my feet now though.

[lucy-lupin.livejournal.com]

In case you're interested, this is an interesting thread on the top of slash:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/resmiranda/232072.html

[uberwald.livejournal.com]

that's a great thread, much food for thought.

The bit about imposing traditional m/f roles in an m/m setting is very true. It's something I have to consciously guard against in my own writing (and I'm not sure if I always succeed). I think when you're writing about any relationship, the couple are going to adopt, for want of better terms, either the 'masculine' or 'feminine' roles, but those roles should not only be irrespective of actual physical gender, but also be mutable, ie, anyone person can be either masculine or feminine at a particular moment, depending on the situation.

Dang that's a long wordy sentence. Please ignore if it sounds like pretentious bollocks.

[lucy-lupin.livejournal.com]

Didn't sound like pretentious bollocks at all. I think what you said is true, but I also think masculine/feminine roles are more complex than one person in the relationship going off to work and the other person staying and home and looking after the kids. And I don't think it's necessarily a dominant/submissive thing. In my relationships I'm definitely the feminine one, but I'm hardly submissive. If anything I get my way more than my boyfriend, and my heterosexual character relationships are like that too.

I haven't really written slash, but the one slash fic (a Pires/Mellberg one) I did write has some interesting role relationships in it. Basically what happens is that Arsenal win an FA Cup against Aston Villa, then the Arsenal boys get drunk and decide to set Pires and Mellberg up by locking them in the janitor's closet together. If anything Pires starts out being the feminine/submissive one because when he comes to, Mellberg has been conscious longer than he has and has had time to take stock of the situation. He also compare Pires to a girl a number of times in a derogatory way, saying he tackles/screams like a girl. But Pires does some quick thinking and by the end of it is the one in control, especially when Mellberg admits he hates being in closed, dark places due to being stuck under a collapsed house when he was little. So the gender roles become reversed and despite being the smaller/weaker of the two, Pires ends up the dominant one.

And it always seems like the smaller of the two with the more refined and intelligent (ie. "feminine") tastes ends up being the submissive one while the other is the protector. I've noticed that particularly in Snape/Sirius fics, Snape is the "feminine" one and this would probably be the case in Remus/Sirius fics. Harry/Draco fics would be the easiest to break gender stereotype roles because they are both capable, dynamic boys in their own right, but in very different ways.

[made-up.livejournal.com]

OK, obviously hot boys kissing. And the feeling of finding a new fandom and reading the first description of hot lips sliding over other hot lips and discovering a whole new pairing of joy.

I go some way with most of the general theories about it and also with Zan's holodeck theory (slash is a cuddlesome au to escape into when things get rough/boring in RL): I started reading seriously in a 'where am I going? what am I doing? why don't I have any *money*?' phase, and I know I read more when I'm stressed. I can only write when I'm full of time and happiness though. Or when I'm drunk. Or invigilating exams.

Where (British) footballslash is concerned, and I'm sorry to mention it during Sap Week, we appear to be facing at least some allegations that our objects of attention exist in a culture which encourages them to be at best spoilt and silly, and at worst, misogynist horrors. Imagining this world where they're in love, defrosting lasagne, being snarky, falling asleep while the phone rings frantically, protecting each other from the effects of racist torments, taking walks in the rain, being bothered by Roy Keane in the showers, is one way of being a female football fan which conveniently ignores the side of things which excludes us completely.

And I love the way clever, funny slash plays around with its raw materials (like Henry Jenkins talks about in Textual Poachers, but he doesn't approve of us in his latest stuff, I'm afraid: http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,53071-2,00.html)

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

And especially with the football, there's something about watching out for clues that could be developed into new pairings. It's not just every time two players hug, it's looking out for little bits of stuff they say and the way they look at each other on the pitch, and their other real actions which could be the bases for a story. It's one of the reasons I find RPS more fun to write than other slash, because the set-up is constantly changing and you have to adapt your fannon to go with it, like when Mikey had the baby, or Becks moved abroad. Whereas in fiction, the characters circumstances are more fixed. Or at least, the places they're going are contrived.
Did that make any kind of sense to anyone?

[made-up.livejournal.com]

totally sensible. And in the middle of the *huge* football audience being a tiny element which specialises in the wicked pleasure of reading the clues all wrong.

[uberwald.livejournal.com]

and then the huge audience wonder why you're the only person in the pub making squeaky noises during the slow-mo replay of the celebrations.

[made-up.livejournal.com]

the double cheer of the footieslash girl: one cheer for the goal, and two seconds later, the cheer for the celebration. Twice as happy as everybody else.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Sooo true.

[lucy-lupin.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that you mention that because I find that with Harry Potter stories. Since there are still two books to come out and one that was only released a few months ago, the medium is not fixed and can change. For example, one of my characters is the older sister to Sirius Black, someone who up until OotP we did not know a lot about in terms of his home life. I was four chapters into my fic when I read OotP and it threw a major curveball into my plans. I enjoyed the challene of having to adapt my fic to this new information (I'm being vague in case you haven't read it and plan to) and figuring out what I could change to make the story more canon and what I had to make AU. If anything the fic is better for it.

[uberwald.livejournal.com]

Also with Brit footyslash I think one of the attractions is how to portray a relationship within that culture and still have it be (vaguely) realistic. I mean, how do you fall in love with someone when the pair of you have been indoctrinated since infancy with the idea that the most intimate you get with your mate is drunken arm-wrestling?

The ethics of RPS is something I thought carefully about before I actually started writing it, and (although I think it's up to the individual's conscience) my conclusion was that so long as you're not a) claiming it's true or b) harassing your subject with it, where is the harm? If I found out that anyone I'd written about knew and objected to it, I'd stop. But I'd do that because I care deeply about these people, daft as it may seem. Which is, perversely, the reason I'm slashing them and not fictional people.

I've serious-ed myself out now. I'm going to have some fruitcake.

[lucy-lupin.livejournal.com]

Also with Brit footyslash I think one of the attractions is how to portray a relationship within that culture and still have it be (vaguely) realistic.

I agree. With some players from more affectionate cultures (ie. Spanish, Italian and French) it's not such an issue, but with the stereotypical blokey English culture it's a real challenge. The men that tend to be slashed, like Beckham and Owen, while not "girly" exactly, are quiet pretty and seem to be more in touch with their feminine sides. I could just not picture Keane slashed, for example. And I could be wrong, but also the French, Spanish and Italian cultures seem more open to homosexuality than the male English cultures.

I'm going to add you to my friends list. You keep on saying stuff!

[uberwald.livejournal.com]

Keane does get slashed. Just in rather dark and scary ways. Not by me though - comeing from a club first-slash second background, I just can't bring myself to write about naked United players.

I'd better warn you that the stuff I say isn't always this erudite ;)

[lucy-lupin.livejournal.com]

"They may have been done more as a lark than as a serious attempt to explore the sexual/romantic nature of two characters."

That's definitely the style of the one RPS fic I wrote ;p. And I agree with a lot of what you said about the behaviour of footballers, especially with the recent rape allegations. I think that most English footballers are good at heart but that many are spoilt early on by having too much many and very little guidance with what to do with it. It's definitely not the same situation as in Italy, where the clubs look after their young players and see it as their responsibility to educate them instead of just looking after the football side of their development. Many Italian players, like del Piero and the Inzaghi brothers, have university degrees and many are involved in business ventures, ie. attempting to invest their money in a sensible manner instead of just blowing it on whatever toys take their fancy. With managers like Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, it is starting to change a little, but I just think the Italian clubs do a better job of developing self-discipline in their players than their English counterparts. And David Moyes also seems to be doing a great job of looking after Wayne Rooney.

[uberwald.livejournal.com]

thoroughly agree about masc/femme not equalling dom/sub. In fact I'm increasingly relectant to use the terms 'masculine' and 'feminine' at all, because they're too limiting, if not in the way I mean them then certainly in the way other people interpret them.

Also - and this is another item for my Why I Like Slash list - I like exploring the moments where the ostensibly 'dominant' partner has a moment of weakness - like your Pires/Mellberg example - or the 'submissive' one ends up taking charge. That 'blimey, there's a whole part of me I never knew about' sense of discovery.

[lucy-lupin.livejournal.com]

With me it's probably #2. I also think that particularly with RPS, the perceived unavailability of these men is a factor. Some girls may feel sad about losing Becks to Victoria, but if they had lost Becks to Owen (someone else who they may admire more than Victoria, although she isn't a person who annoys me personally), that wouldn't be so bad. At least they can think it wasn't them :)

I also think the 'it just floats my boat' theory should never be forgotten ;)

Indeed ;p

[uberwald.livejournal.com]

Having given it some thought, I'd like to add another reason:

- it let's me have cool in-depth conversations like this one.

[lucy-lupin.livejournal.com]

True :)