Oddly, it did not strike me as unsavory, just as not my thing. Slash for the most part leaves me cold and Sam/Dean is no exception to that rule. Even where I find the ship believable...such as with House/Wilson...or Jack/Ianto or Fledgling!Spike/Angelus...I don't really get much of a charge out of slash pairings. And sometimes, I get repulsed...and I'll tell you why...it's the submission that seems to go hand in hand with any non-vanilla pairing, as if crossing one social hurdle takes you over all of them.
Yes, we are gay...and brothers...and dress in women's clothing...and hang around in bars until someone beats us up and then we smother each other in peanut butter so we can lick it off. Come on!
The thing is I am not a fan of submission and, it seems to me, too often slash fic either goes completely out of character or turns on the idea of blood play or bondage so that one of the participants is submissive to the other. I don't mind need and hunger driving someone to their knees, but exploiting or hurting other people is a big turn off for me. And it seems there are lots of S & M overtones to the event in most slash stories I've encountered (admittedly I don't go wading through the drek, looking for the quality stuff). I am squicked by sub/dom scenarios of any sort, rather than strickly by the concept of incest or homoerotica. Incest carries with it many stomach turning taboos, of course. And it is hard for me to consider it at all entertaining, let alone provocative. But a large part of why is that incest is usually victimization, people preying on innocents and family members, who they should be supporting and nurturing.
Okay, this explanation is too long and a little disturbing, but I'm working toward a point here and it is about this fic I'm about to recommend. It is a Wincestuous fic and it's really worth reading, not only because of how well it is written, but because it put Wincest into perspective for me.
It is obviously not for anyone who has experienced incest or who can't even deal with concepts of this sort. But it is not a victimization fic. Not even slightly non-com. This fic...doesn't remove any of the squick I have to the Wincest concept, which still leaves me cringing (and/or baffled), but I will say that the worldview it takes is believable. It stays completely true to character and lets the reader see how something like Wincest might be canon. How imploding passions can get out of hand in a world of demon fighting and seclusion. I find my mind still keeps sliding away from the idea...and yet...there is no denying this fic is beautifully done.
The writer in me can't help but be awed, because this is really what fiction is all about to my way of thinking. What writing is about, communicating a completely alien concept to another person, saying, "I know this isn't your thing, but let's look at the world THIS way."
It also doesn't hurt that this author is sublime. I mean should be published, seriously gifted, sublime. And the story reads like an actual episode of Supernatural. The final fight sequence left my ears ringing with the power in it. The dialogue pops and the mystery is just pitch perfect and the prose...is like poetry. Over and over again, I found myself going, "Damn! Wish I'd written that!" So...read it if you dare...and let me know what you think.
AUTHOR: paxlux
TITLE: Watch The Weather Change
RATING: hard R
PAIRING: Sam/Dean
WORD COUNT: ~38,000
DISCLAIMER: I only wish the Winchesters were mine.
SUMMARY: It occurs to Dean this will become a habit, the two of them always with an eye on the weather, on the horizon in ways they aren’t used to. Instead of cop cars and exit strategies, instead of the black gaze of demons and the flying cutlery preferred by poltergeists, they’ll be on the lookout for clouds and all the odds say they won’t be struck by lightning.
NOTE: Vague Season 3. AU as it doesn't completely follow canon.
LINK: http://community.livejournal.com/hunter
Rae
2009-08-21 03:48 am (UTC)
I think that's fair, since what's one person's kink is majorly disturbing to someone else. I think a writer purposefully taking on S&M or related scenarios has to be really good at what s/he is doing, because otherwise it can turn into stereotyping the individuals into m/f gender roles, which carries all sorts of squicky implications. That said, it can be done well.
Personally, I've never been much into slash simply because I'm usually not into any pairing that's not canon (which says a lot about mainstream media and brings up the question of how exactly to define 'slash', but anyway), so I can't say much about that sort of trend in slash in general. I will say, though, that sometimes it does make sense with the characters, such as Ianto and Jack who... probably tried everything from basic tab a into slot b to handcuffs to (possibly) blood play to naked hide-and-seek. One just needs to be sure to write the scenarios with the proper amounts of trust and fun, along with keeping the characters actually IC, and while potentially squicky for some people, it can work.
That said, what some people are comfortable reading/writing (or Jack and Ianto would be comfortable doing) really varies so... yeah. Not quite sure where I'm going here.
2009-08-21 04:36 am (UTC)
But then again, like kink...it could be a personal journey. It is very easy to squick someone. I've been squicked by things that were not strictly speaking all that squicky...and then I read this Wincest fic and it goes down just fine.
And, yes, part of what bothers me about the few slash stories I've stopped reading...is that one of the men becomes "girly" in a really offensive fashion. And I wonder what it is that the writer is trying to say about men and women. This fic I've recommended goes to this place in using the terminology already in the show...Dean calling Sam...girly and bitch and princess. I think that's one of the things that sends out the sexual tension vibe to people. I'm not sure real brothers do that to this extent. Another factor in Supernatural is that there simply is nobody else to ship...at least until Casteil shows up...unless you ship Sam/Ruby and the demon thing is equally icky for me. Frankly, I find that the angel angle squicks me in a more incestuous way than Sam/Dean...because angels do have that power over people thing going on...and again...I don't like sub/dom in any form. :grin:
But, sure, I could read Jack/Ianto and believe almost anything of it. I don't find slash very titilating and Jack/Ianto didn't really inspire me too much...so I never have read a Janto fic...but still...I could see it going most anywhere. As I've said, had I been in RTD's place I would have taken the relationship to a dark end as well...just not the dark end it got...which was ridiculous in my opinion.
BTW, I too find that mostly I can't do non-canon ships...or ships that couldn't really be supported in canon. When the Wincest hit me in S2...I was all..."WTF?" Now, I'm getting used to it...in canon...and this fic above makes the most of the canon to really carry off the idea. If the author had taken any missteps...I would have dropped the fic cold...but she kept me enthralled and I bought into her worldview. So, at this point, maybe I agree with you that anything can work in fic if the author is talented enough.
Rae
2009-08-23 06:01 pm (UTC)
I don't think writers are necessarily trying to say something but that, instead, these gender roles are just so ingrained in their psyches that they use those to base their fic on, rather than the characters at hand.
Then again, may be I just really don't want to believe people consciously stick gender roles into their fics because that's how Things Should Be. I'm hoping most people are beyond that now.
Dean calling Sam...girly and bitch and princess. I think that's one of the things that sends out the sexual tension vibe to people.
Huh, it's interesting that this sort of thing would help create sexual tension. Not really sure why (the gender roles thing, the "he dost protest too much," the thing where characters who insult each other secretly want sex, etc.), but it is.
As I've said, had I been in RTD's place I would have taken the relationship to a dark end as well...just not the dark end it got...which was ridiculous in my opinion.
Well I think any love story with Jack (or the Doctor, really) has to end in tragedy, because they will outlive anyone and everything. Since Jack especially lives in the world of Torchwood, that tragedy's going to happen on-screen, and it's going to be heartbreaking.
That said, you know I agree with your "ridiculous"--Ianto and Jack wouldn't have been that stupid, and reducing Ianto to a plot device for making Jack sad and showing the high stakes was just silly, especially after what happens to Steven.
When the Wincest hit me in S2...I was all..."WTF?" Now, I'm getting used to it...in canon...and this fic above makes the most of the canon to really carry off the idea.
I'll definitely check it out once I finally watch SPN. Incest squicks me, but after seeing all the Jack (Sparrow, Harkness...) tentacle!porn out there, I think I can get past that if the writing is good and the characters are IC.