the old faithful

[floorpigeon]

All these years later, I'm still not sure if this is true: are people's preferences for bottoms in slash pairings directly correlated with which character they'd want taken care of? And if so, what does this say about feminism, ideas about gender roles, etc.

I totally get that feminism gets some stuff wrong-- stuff to do with stuff women do feel rather than should feel. It can be overly prescriptive on issues that are too hormonal/biological rather than simply cultural. This is also the case with other social movements (the didacticism), but only veganism and environmentalism seem on par with feminism in this sense. Somehow, believing in 'the right thing' becomes outrage at like, human nature, too easily. Not cool with me. But still.

It's never been natural for me to associate the character I'd like to bottom with infantilizing or identification, even, and I don't know how to judge my own freakishness. Reading (and enjoying) bottom!Kirk fics has especially brought this home to me. I prefer top!Kirk because I like the dynamic with Spock better, because it exposes aspects of Spock I find interesting (his emotional yielding to Kirk becomes manifested physically, yet also problematized). I find I'm ok with bottom/switch!Kirk if the fic explores similar issues with Spock anyway, though in my mind I also simply don't like the issues bottom!Kirk has (not interesting to me psychologically). Other people seem to focus on who's more 'in-control' emotionally (tops), who's more of a woobie (bottoms), who's prettier or skinnier (often bottoms), even. It's just kind of problematic in both characterization & feminist ways. Ironically, yaoi manga plays with these cliches a lot of times where the point is having a pretty-boy top or whatever, though I'm not sure that's ideal, but it's more than slash seems to do.

The 'realism' angle seems irrelevant, btw; like, I don't care if most gay men don't do penetrative sex, or if the focus on top/bottom itself is 'wrong' (and everyone should switch). That's too didactic/prescriptive. But there's so much predictability & rigidity in most people's preferences that that itself seems problematic somehow-- gender-roles, etc-- except I myself am so hardcore about top!Harry. Though honestly, this is definitely partly rooted in just the horrid characterizations of almost all top!Dracos. Honestly, he's just not dommy at all. The whole thing where he wants to take care of Harry or thinks Harry is a woobie in any way is just so groan-worthy it's embarrassing. And I mean, having Draco be 'cool' enough to top a badass Harry is just silly. I mean, if someone wrote a pathetic Draco topping a badass Harry, ok (if unsatisfying), but that pretty much never happened. Which is probably evidence for the psychological basis thing. *sigh*

Comments

[floorpigeon.livejournal.com]

Hahaha Maya. I reconciled myself by thinking Maya's Draco was his own AU. Possibly also his own planet, and his own gov't and his own fanclub all rolled into one. I feel I can be generous 'cause I know Maya *meant* to make him pathetic but simply *failed*, haha (ahh! sometimes our wit is our greatest enemy... this is def. the case for Maya). Though Loki not being badass would make me cry. D:

Yeah, theoretically I agree with you-- emotional health for Harry (or anyone!) *shouldn't* have to mean marrying your best friend's little sister. I mean, whuh--? They can just-- grow up! Right? So logically I see that, and yet I don't see H/D from it without the corruption I mentioned (I can see, like, Harry/OFC), *unless* you do the thing you mentioned and delete books 5-7 from existence (but I luuurved book 5). The thing that happened to me with book 6 is a crux, though, in my thinking about all this. I mean, it's not like I loved it the way I did with OoTP, but it was like, 'real' to me, in part 'cause it really reflected a lot of what I thought *should* happen in book 6 (and fanfic never realized). So to get some stuff I wanted to happen, I could only go to HBP (and book 7 is just part 2 of HBP). Anyway, I don't think ickle!Harry is incompatible with OoTP!Harry at all-- he *needed* to flip his shit, and the boy was crying out for hormones and creepy Dumbledore reveal big-time-- but then I was stuck 'cause HBP seemed logical to me, at least in regards to Dumbledore and Snape and Draco, if not necessarily Harry (esp. re: Sirius). I loved the whole anger/fear thing on Draco's part, and Harry's fixation (always there!). Anyway, it was a weird mixture of stuff I wished didn't happen and stuff I thought had to happen. Some stuff about Draco's characterization only seems sucky 'cause people wrote bad fanfic about it, for instance, but at the time, I was more miffed that dark!Harry got snuffed so easily. Meh. And yet, the larger context of HBP made *sense*, so I felt stuck with canon, canon, canon, and I'm an all-or-nothing person in some ways.

Still. You're right-- third/fourth-year!Harry would think epilogue!Harry was like, Dursleyfied, wtf. Fifth-year!Harry would be disgusted with his behavior re: Sirius and Draco. First-year!Harry would be freaked out at his own darkness, Crucio-ing, Dumbledore/Draco/Snape stuff and pretty much everything about DH!Harry. I wrote this fic (http://www.skyehawke.com/archive/story.php?no=2822) once and it's telling that in my head, this is pre-HBP!Harry post-war, as happy as I could make him, and he wasn't paired with anyone except his broomstick. ^^;;

Ok you're right, Spock breaking his preconceptions is awesome (which is why it's my kink! right! melting-the-ice kind of goes with melting-the-dogma, haha). But poor baby, it hurts. You're right, though, that by the time he admitted he needs Jim as a friend, fucking is secondary. I mean, yeah. This is why TOS sex is kinda boring and sometimes gross (though I stand by that Pon Farr fic being awesome and necessary for the world). But Reboot lets me play 'cause there's this sense of possibility again. Sex is more interesting when it's not a sure thing. Like, knowing that TOS K/S would be so easy (in a sense) kind of kills it, yes. Also, old. Dudes are OLD. You think GREEN is bad, last fic I read had a self-lubricating Vulcan peen with TENTACLES THAT DID THE LUBRICATING like a SEA ANEMONE (this analogy was in the fic).

The whole thing with Uhura is that I can't bear anyone being close to Spock except Jim (you know, I was uncomfortable when Bones had his katra... like....... gah creepy-crawlies, your family uncle found 'holding' your dad's penis 'for safe-keeping' falskjfaslkjasflkjaflkaj). This is what happens when you imprint on a character when you're 12. >____>

[cellia.livejournal.com]

your family uncle found 'holding' your dad's penis 'for safe-keeping' falskjfaslkjasflkjaflkaj)

OH GOD WHY DID YOU WRITE THIS IT'S LIKE I'M BLIND NOW DDDDDDD: NOOOOOOOOO

>________<

[floorpigeon.livejournal.com]

hafjkhfkajsh i was kind of wondering if that was a little graphic, but then that was what made it funnier?? haflk hahahah sorry ^^;;

[cellia.livejournal.com]

AND THEY'RE BOTH SO OLD FOR KATRA-TIME TOO WHICH OK I AM BEING SHALLOW BUT HUMANS ARE SHALLOW BEASTS

[floorpigeon.livejournal.com]

HAHA all of a sudden, I was like, 'well, Reboot!Bones can hold Spocks peen katra, ok' fakljsasddas

[cellia.livejournal.com]

Everyone is cute in reboot.

Not that I care.

And this also makes people ship Kirk/Bones

WHICH IS WRONGGGG

[floorpigeon.livejournal.com]

Haha yes. It is Very Wrong, and this is where I draw the line (on Kirk-being-able-to-stick-it-anywhere in my head). Though it seems I'm repressing 'cause everytime I read cute Kirk/Bones interaction in fic, a part of me wonders (very quietly) what it'd be like if they had sex... ^^;;;;;; I AM SHALLOW. D:

[cellia.livejournal.com]

well reboot!Bones is hot and not very racist and that undisciplined reboot!Kirk punk prob would

who even cares

even though spiritually it rebounds through the greater multiverse that Kirk/Bones is wronnnnnnnggggg

[floorpigeon.livejournal.com]

Hahah "not very racist" *dies* It's the snark! I blame the snark. Whenever two people share snark, I'm like, 'why not just skip to the chase and get naked' :> Ok not really, but still.

It *is* wrong. TOS!McCoy/Spock is wronger, though. I used to have this strong conviction that Spock should be alone until the Pon Farr comes, and then he could, I guess, start inappropriately feeling up underage half-Vulcan females... gross...

[cellia.livejournal.com]

omg is this a confession of your vulcan Mary Sue days?

I would of course be the dashing earth woman scientist etc

[floorpigeon.livejournal.com]

HAHAHA no, I meant Saavik. >____>; Though that would be hilarious. I WAS a Mary-Sue but I was Amanda Grayson's ancestor, 'cause I would name my daughter Amanda and it would become a family name, you see, so I was totes his great-great-great...grandma. :> :>

[cellia.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah the Saavik thing...

I strike that from my mind every time I'm reminded of it

[cellia.livejournal.com]

I actually agree with your HP points, but I just didn't like the later books as much. I just... disagree with jkr's worldview lots, and the characters weren't *quite* fun enough to make up for it (and also how she used magic).

Pon Farr was such a gift to us *___*

I can deal if I imagine them all younger I guess? lol the tentacles

I wish I were kinky enough to get off on cool xenophilia like Kirk is. But alas

Uhura/Spock is fine though because no one will be close like Kirk and Spock are! idk idk if the fic is well-written it has the mature vibe that people can love more than 1 person in different ways and it's all good and even better and nothing is diminished. Weirdly, I have more mature fic enjoyment in TOS. Maybe because I think it's more actually more fun when they're acting like awesome, mature, adults. (One annoyance I have with the reboot. And maybe lots of media nowadays. But dammit people seem more mature and professional in the 60s! Even in comics! To my knowledge! And we walked to school in the snow uphill both ways etc etc)

[floorpigeon.livejournal.com]

Oh, JKR. I think I got immunized early on, 'cause I got my OMG ALL-ENCOMPASSING HATRED of JKR's 'vision' out before I was even part of fandom (well, it's why I didn't read the books! and threw book 1 against the wall, etc). But then I was like, reading fanfic and thinking 'man, Draco is so hot when he's pining for Harry' and then I was like, 'fuck it, I'll read the books or they'll never stop making fun of me' (Cassie Claire once piled on with others at her lj, after which she suggested I recuperate by getting an ice-cream). And it was all down-hill from there, but mostly I just stopped paying attention to her world-view/the wizarding world/anything but Harry and Draco and Ron (with some Snape). I was happier with canon but increasingly dissociated from reality (but oh well, haha).

Nooo people can love more than one person (see! Jim loves Bones! and he can love the Enterprise! and his son! and whoever, really), but SPOCK can have ONLY JIM. haha. >___>; See that's what I meant about 12-year-old!me >>> maturity. Theoretically this is true, but I can't... well, I'm just a romantic-- for me, any romance I'm on board with becomes a big deal, all-encompassing, etc, unless I just like it 'cause it's cute (like Ron/Hermione). Plus, the maturer it is, the less I tend to feel it needs me to ship it-- this is how I feel about Heero/Relena, say. It's like, so... proper, like the sort of pairing a well-meaning friend of the couple would set up by a blind date. Since my favorite thing about Spock romance is him being super-unreasonable, I can't help but feel threatened. Though I like them as friends and think they're well-suited. Some people seem to imply Spock could have sex with her without any great angst or investment, which also makes me sad. But! Also, if you're not strangling your beloved on the bridge in rage, IS IT REALLY LOVE?? D:

[cellia.livejournal.com]

idk idk I totally get what you feel for Spock because I am kinda that way with other pairings, but TOS is just... different for me. Like all mature but goofy but sincere adventures and being officers and laughing together on the bridge at the end of every ep and clasping hands during movies. It is a diff type of fandom for me. Like it's about IDEALS ok? lol idek

I like the idea of K/S because it makes them even happier and more well-balanced as humans. I guess that's actually true for many of my pairings. Well unless just fun, 1-off kinky noncon like Harry/Lucius. But mostly I don't care about couples that will spiral into unhealthy obsessiveness or something. Not that I don't get it, it's just not my cuppa. I always want to shake the ppl and be like "omg your angsting about your relationship all the time is dull! get a hobby! take up needlept or st!"

[floorpigeon.livejournal.com]

Hee! Sincere adventures, of course-- I'm a total Star Trek idealist (there's that teenage imprinting again). Spaceships and camaraderie all the way. This is why I'm most at ease with all of them being asexual, except that Jim is everything-sexual and Spock is Jim-sexual, haha. Mind-meld-sexual?? um. As idealistic as I get about spaceships and team-work, I can never be all free-love/communal in that sense, I guess. >___>;

Haha I think that's a good thing (I mean, shipping healthy couples). There's a reason I come back again and again to K/S and not to H/D, which I'm sooo burnt out on... and I come back to Heero/Duo, which btw I also think is healthy & good for them. Actually, if you asked me when I shipped 'em hardcore, I'd tell you Buffy/Spike and H/D were also healthy and were awesome 'cause they had the capacity to make both better people (this is super-especially true of B/S). H/D was only more iffy 'cause so much of the fanfic so spectacularly failed to demonstrate this potential (B/S had some good fic in that sense! so it's not impossible! why suck so hard, fandom???). This is actually why I prefer Bella with Jacob in Twilight, hahahahalfkajslkjaflkjf ok pretend I didn't say that even though it's true. ^^;;;

So yeah, spiraling into obsessiveness isn't like, my dream or something, esp. for characters I like. This is sort of the major mental block I developed with H/D, probably, convincing myself that it was ok that it was so fucked up. Partly this is due to fandom & woobie!Draco backlash and happy-shiny!Harry I was reading, partly inspiration from OoTP, partly wanting to work through angst and bitterness about relationships. But yeah, I mean, I'm an idealist and a romantic... of course I believe love can save you. And, um, it should. Although, angsting about the relationship just makes it spicy and fun to read. Angst! It's what's for dinner.

(This is why I'm all omg about say, Snape/Lily angst and doom and teenage hormones/Death Eateriness/asshole!Snape, and yet I totally believe if it worked out, it'd be great for both of them, and it doesn't seem contradictory in my head.)

...You can clearly guess who's the NF here, hahahlafkjlkajflk.

[cellia.livejournal.com]

Some people seem to imply Spock could have sex with her without any great angst or investment, which also makes me sad. But! Also, if you're not strangling your beloved on the bridge in rage, IS IT REALLY LOVE?? D:

also I am totally one of those ppl :D

and strangling on the bridge is dumb and not a mark of an interesting relationship >:D

srry I am reading a bunch of comics and I am just so TIRED of people hitting each other to solve things. It never works boys! Use your words!

[floorpigeon.livejournal.com]

Hahah! Ok you're right. I've been poisoned by H/D?? Also, that scene was hot... Spock losing control! I can't not think that. Of course it doesn't actually help, but I just like that he drives Spock totally insane (ok granted he was 'emotionally compromised'). Also, if things *worked* it would just be a *healthy relationship* and those never make for good fic. This is my excuse for never actually shipping healthy relationships very hard... except K/S... and there's a reason that's mainly asexual... ^^;;

[cellia.livejournal.com]

No way, there can be very cool stories with healthy relationships! Or healthy enough for fiction. Or I guess getting to the healthy part can be the plot. Unhealthy relationships are usually the dull ones, where they expend too much energy moping and navel-gazing and ~~misunderstanding each other (so hard to pull off) when they should be sexin' or fighting vampires or st. I guess I come at it fr a romance novel pov. I'm into the slash usually for a greater sum of happiness. Or sometimes a little pining or noncon with some characters that it turns my crank for.

The bridge scene was very cool, BUT! It had nothing to do with friendship or any good relationship buildup. It was about Kirk's tactical decision to get Spock out of power by hitting him at his weakest point in his weakest spot and encouraging him to do something he'd be VERY ashamed of later.

I mean in the movie it was kinda hot. But eh for the characters it's eh

[floorpigeon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I did admit that in the other comment, so you got me. :> I do enjoy it most when it's the 'getting to', though-- drama! You're right that too many misunderstandings get tedious (unless it's a comedy), so it has to be going somewhere. It's useful (the pining/misunderstanding) insofar as it makes the characters really question themselves, struggle, and grow closer through adversity. Psychological conflict can breed breakthroughs, eureka moments, and just overall emotional intensity that leads to hotter sex and better teamwork with monster-killing, but of course it takes someone who's actually good at psychological angst to do it well. Then again, slice-of-life stories take a specific talent also.

DAMMIT! Ok you totally called me on my rhetorical flourish-- I know it wasn't really relationship build-up/about the two of them as such, though you wouldn't be able to tell from how often Reboot!K/S writers bring it up, haha. I know it's tactical, etc. In my defense, I still think its power was partly from the fact that it's *Kirk* getting under Spock's skin, and that 'getting under the skin' thing *is* something I associate with relationships are the preliminary stage. Or something. But yes, to develop them you'd have to get them to get *over* this incident rather than incorporating it, etc.