I wanna know what love is; I want you to show me.

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Title: I wanna know what love is; I want you to show me.
Creator: thefourthvine
Date(s): September 19, 2007
Medium: LiveJournal post
Fandom:
Topic:
External Links: I wanna know what love is; I want you to show me.; archive link page 1; archive link page 2; archive link page 3
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I wanna know what love is; I want you to show me. is a 2007 post by thefourthvine.

This essay comments on the smarm quotient of an unnamed fic. The comments discuss many topics, as well as try to figure out what story thefourthvine is citing. The title or fandom of the story is never revealed.

The essay has 441 comments.

Some Topics Discussed

The Essay

Older fandoms, you confuse me so. The story I'm reading right now has piercing gazes, searing gazes, cuddling, comforting, lengthy descriptions of eyes that change color (Green! Hazel! Gold! No, I'm not kidding - really, gold, and this isn't the right fandom for him to have been implanted with a Goa'uld.), marriage proposals, men of action sharing their feelings in astonishing detail and with great (sometimes searing) honesty, a guy telling another guy how beautiful he is, holding hands, kissing, and two adult men (of action!) with extensive disposable incomes living together and sharing a bed.

And it's gen.*

I am patiently waiting for the mutual declarations of eternal love while hugging (or crying; I'd totally take crying) in the rain. Then, and only then, will I be able to stop reading.

So, does anyone have a story from an older fandom to recommend to me? You people have mostly been at this longer than me - surely you've got some nice gen or slash story favorite from a pre-LJ fandom that you could link me to. Gen or slash welcome - especially gen that I can read as gen. Seriously. Save me from myself. And this story. I am just bewildered, here.

-Footnote-

  • Another gen story in the same fandom (but by a different person) features a noted canonical horndog turning down NSA sex with a beautiful woman because he's in love with someone else - that someone being, of course, the guy who is his Entirely Not Slashy Totally Hetero Life Partner. (It also had a paragraph about their great and abiding love, and the Totally Hetero Life Partner isn't even in the story. Nor is there any explanation of why the THLP would want his "friend" to turn down the sex - I mean, seriously, it was just presented as "this is what you do when you're in love with your THLP, forswear sex and cleave only unto him, but in a straight and manly way." I guess I am just not straight enough to understand that.) And the author's note contained a diatribe against slash. Oh, my people.

Comments at the Essay

joandarck: I was just about to say, were it not for the eye colour, I would have thought that had to be Sentinel. Is there completely non-sexual licking of someone from head to foot? By any chance?

thefourthvine: It is totally not TS. (For one thing, I think I read every readable story in that fandom like three years ago; it was my gateway to dS.) It is much worse than TS as far as Gen That Is Totally Not Gen goes.

percysowner: Now let's not be hasty here. I find it hard to believe anything can be more Gen That Is Totally Not Gen than Susan's GDP series . There is a scene later in the series where Blair has to ground Jim. This involves touching EVERY single square INCH of Jim's body. Jim finally feels like an explosion is running through his entire body. Then they have to get a warm washcloth to wipe themselves so they do not end up sticking to each other as they fall asleep in each other's arms. Late on IN THE SAME CHAPTER Jim muses on how odd it is that anyone would think this is a sexual relationship.

carta: what the hell fandom IS that? (I'd totally read it.)

Also, I love love LOVE this story: Visual Aid by Charlemagne. - Sports Night, Dan/Casey with the "I am straight! But I have a life-size picture of my best friend in my bedroom! I touch myself while I look at it! OMG!" angst. It's awesome. I dub it pre-LJ since the fandom was not primarily on LJ at the time, and the show has since been canceled (woe).

There is no gen in Sports Night - even the "gen" stories are slashy. Such is the way of the Sorkin.

shayheyred: Man From UNCLE. The fandom in which I read a slash story describing Illya's dick as a "rosy-crested ivory tower of lust."

notpoetry: One of the first slash stories I read was Trigger Fish's New York Rain. It's Law & Order (I know), Jack McCoy/Mike Logan (I know), and right now I'm repressing the urge to reread it for the trillionth time because I know it can't possibly be as good as I remember it. It's old-school slash fanfiction, with a lot of elements that were new then but have become cliche now, and some classic tropes that have entirely fallen out of style. The whole series is fascinating to read just from an "evolution of fandom" stand-point. I almost wish we'd had LJ, so I could go through and read the comments on the story and see what other people thought. Just for reference: according to the collective page this site is hosted on, it was last updated in August of 1998. I ... won't share how old I was then, because then I'd have to go and cry.

notpoetry: [Law and Order] is a cop fandom, for a show that's swiftly coming up on Gunsmoke's record of "longest running drama on television." But the fascinating thing about Law & Order is that despite it being on forever, we know almost nothing about some of the characters [which, okay, some of that has to do with the constantly revolving door of cops & assistant DAs, but Jack McCoy's been on there since like 1996 (I think) and his info's still highly limited, when it doesn't contradict itself directly], so writers have/had a lot of room to play around.

Also, the Jack/Claire Kincaid "romance" is, to a letter, the most perfectly-done, well-handled on-screen relationship on a procedural drama ever. It's my model for at least half of the romantic relationships I've written in my teleplay scripts and screenwriting stuff. Except for the part where she dies in a car crash and then the only outcome of that is used to expand Jack's character. But that's a whole different rant.

Basically, it was one of my first fandoms, I loved it a lot and met some people (like snarkhunter and daygloparker and others) who I still consider good friends, and despite the fact that the show's plummeted in quality and I haven't seen a new episode in at least four or five years, I still love it solely for how awesome of a learning experience it was for me.

Also, I checked the date on New York Rain, and it turns out that story was written in October 1997. It's nearly a decade old. One more year and this story will be old enough to be in middle school. I ... I have no words.

cesperanza: I ALSO read this series back in the day and I rec it all the time! I resisted rereading for a while (for the same reasons--couldn't face if it wasn't the way I remmebered) but I gave in not too long ago, and it was a blast! Jack's motorcycle! Mike's long runs! The place it fell apart for me was when it was revealed that Mike once had a thing with Ben Stone--that was where I was all, OH NOES, STOP. But Logan/McCoy worked for me where it totally shouldn'tve. I sent her ridiculously happy feedback!

z rayne:. I don't remember any smarm in Pros. It was either true gen (often written by guys) or it was slash. Possibly OOT slash, but definitely unabashed slash. *g*

thefourthvine: There's actually a genre name for those kinds of stories: smarm. I don't know if anyone uses the term anymore—I haven't heard it since Sentinel fandom's heyday—but it used to be very commonplace. I've heard it used fairly often, but to be honest, I never really understood it until last night, when all my fan fiction instincts were like, "Okay, the sex/fade to black goes HERE." And then the characters just kept on holding each other or discussing their feelings. Or they went to sleep. In the same bed. In a totally non-sexual way.

z rayne: I think I read Plank, back in the day, but smarm was unsatisfying for me because while I love all the affectionate stuff, I want the porn that comes after, too, so smarm was only giving me half a fix.

jacquez: see, and smarm was never a problem for me (unless it was one of those smarm stories that is all OMG WE ARE NOT EITHER TOTALLY SEXUALLY IN LOVE SLASH IS EVIL AND WRONG OMG HOW DARE YOU IMPLY THAT ABOUT MY STORY YOU...YOU...YOU...IMMORAL SLUT!) because about 98% of the time I am totally uninterested in the porn... I mean it was never a problem for me to read smarm as smarm, because the lack of NC-17 age didn't bug. That didn't mean I didn't find it remarkably silly most of the time. :)

vassillissa: For me (this was earlier on, before I'd met up with better writers - or delurked, for that matter) smarm was the impetus for moving on to slash. The writers - the ones who weren't writing complete and utter fluff, I mean, and that means the H/C ones - kept on upping the angst quotient each story, because the same hit wasn't doing its job. And I was reading the one where Kirk goes blind and can't be captain any more, and Spock and McCoy are passionately and nonsexually assuring him that he's still their BFF, and I decided that really, in the scheme of things, gay sex would be both less out of character and less traumatic.

stillane: Hm. I'm gonna have to assume this is either in the Professionals or Starsky and Hutch zone. I'm leaning more toward S&H, though, because of the cuddle factor. (And you're totally not going to tell us, are you? *puppy eyes*) As for pre-LJ fandoms: I'll let you know. I'm going through a Man from U.N.C.L.E. kick just now, and spent a sad few days last week unsuccessfully looking for the huge trove of The Wild Wild West slash that just had to be out here somewhere. If M.U.N.C.L.E. trips your fancy, I can keep track of what I liked.

giandujakiss: Starsky & Hutch gen stories were like that too, I'm told. Some may still be. And of course, back in the day, gen fans were really at war with slashers; some threatened to report slashers to the copyright holders.

thefourthvine: And of course, back in the day, gen fans were really at war with slashers; some threatened to report slashers to the copyright holders.

Very true, and a good point. I suspect it's like the Ray Wars or whatever: no one who wasn't there can truly understand the depths of vitriol and anger involved.

My first thought upon reading that author's note was, "Oh, I bet that ended up on fandom_wank." And then I remembered they didn't have fandom_wank when this was written. It was all very disorienting.

drlense: Don't forget the entirety of the "Little Britches" series- Chris and Buck live together, raise children together, and never date- but they're ABSOLUTELY NOT GAY.

drlense: Some of the bonding fic is interesting- I'm just always amused by authors who have this incredible level of intimacy between the guide and the sentinel, involving nudity and the "bonding", which is JUST LIKE SEX, but they're NOT GAY OMG. It's slash without slash.

the shoshanna: Oh my god -- I would have guessed Sentinel too, but if it's not that, I'm dying to know what it is. Dying. As for pre-LJ slash, have you read much Professionals? You can't go wrong with classic stories by HG, O. Yardley, M. Fae Glasgow (the woman who did more than probably any other single person to put porn into slash!), Pamela Rose, Ellis Ward, Fanny Adams, Helen Raven . .

derryderrydown: M. Fae Glasgow (the woman who did more than probably any other single person to put porn into slash!) And who was responsible for my early belief that slash had to have porn in it, which resulted in me crowbarring porn into stories that were all, "Do Not Want!" *g*

the shoshanna: Whoops! On the other hand, she wrote a Dalgleish, I think it was, story with no sex; there was a sex scene in an early draft, but it really didn't fit, so she took it out. And I was so sorry not to get a sex scene from her when I read the story that I asked her to send it to me anyway, which she did -- and it was hot, though she was right, it really didn't belong in the story.

brown betty: Man, those old school slashers had some seriously classy pseuds: none of this muldrsgrrrrrl you get from only being allowed fourteen characters.

the shoshanna: It was actually a pretty big culture shock to me to get on line (again) in the mid-90s and encounter people with weird non-name names. A fair number of fans back in the day didn't use pseudonyms at all. (Though certainly plenty did; I'd still dearly love to know who the Southern Cross was, a stunningly good K/S artist of the 70s-80s, iirc.)

brown betty: Yes, I only realized after submitting my comment that some of them might not be pseuds. With zines, "there I was innocently paging through a pamphlet about Spock's pure love for Kirck when what to my wondering eyes should appear but the name of my son's first grade teacher!" wasn't so much something you needed to fear. Oh, google.

thefourthvine: Not telling! But it really is a thing of beauty. If slightly bewildering. I keep saying, "Oh, come ON. This could not be any slashier if you had an actual explicit blowjob! And some buttfucking! AND A COMMITMENT CEREMONY IN CANADA."

melannen: ...since you've already denied that it's TS, I'm gonna have to guess Highlander. Especially w/ the color-changing eyes. Although what I've read in that fandom is somewhat less likely to have the anti-slash caveats, other than that it ALL FITS. (the older fandom I've been wallowing in of late is TS, so I'm afraid I can't much help you there. Oh! Also Eroica. There's at least a little old-school slashy gen there that's actually believable as gen, partly 'cause you don't get homophobes writing in Eroica. Let me go rummage around my del.icio.us account.)

xparrot : Smarm confuses a lot of people, especially those who encounter it from the slash angle. I usually try to explain it as a special kink for platonic love, because otherwise people take it for castrated slash or fannish homophobia or other things it isn't (isn't always, anyway; in some cases, maybe...)

RGB - yes. The cartoon (based on the movies). And yes, there is...well. It depends how you define 'a lot' of fanfic. The fandom itself was fairly small.

However, at least one author in it wrote over 300 stories and counting. And I don't mean drabbles - I mean, 5,000-50,000 word stories. All smarm-oriented, about how close friends (but ONLY FRIENDS) the guys were.

brown betty: I read a fantastic, be which I mean um, "unbelievable," but not "quality," sentinal AU where… how did it go? I think Jim needed to "bond" with Blair for his mental stability or something, and bonding was best accomplished naked, so Jim kept on ripping his clothes off, and there was a bit about how Blair had to keep loose fitting clothes on at all times or risk carpet burn when Jim whisked his pants off. All non-sexual, of course. Sex is ew.

beck liz: You know, the one thing I am really grateful for is that I started out on the slash side in TS fandom, which is amazing considering how new I was to slash at the time. So I kept hearing about stuff like that, but I never actually read more than one or two (which were described as "really good, despite the fact that it's smarm"). Thank goodness.

thefourthvine: [The Pretenders] is GAYER THAN THE SENTINEL. I didn't actually think that was POSSIBLE.

You know, here's the thing. I saw this fabulous and incredibly gay Persuaders vid. And I was like, "Wow. That is very gay." And then I rec'd it, saying in my rec that it was the gayest thing ever.

And people said, "No, actually. The show itself was much gayer."

At which point my brain suffered a fatal exception error. Apparently that show managed to contain more gay than is in the whole universe. It's a paradox of the space/time/homosexuality continuum!

Also, Dan and Casey join me in saying 'hee!'

Oh, Dan and Casey. <3!

thefourthvine: I think it was even better coming at it the way I did. See, I read the author's note first [of mentioned story], because it was at the top, and then read through the story in increasing bewilderment, going, "But - but this IS slash, right?" I actually had to check the label after I was done, because I was so convinced it was slash. And it wasn't, and I was confused, and then I remembered that the author's note had basically said that slash is EVIL AND DESTROYING FANDOM and that this story was written to prove that you DON'T NEED TO WRITE SLASH. And then I died of joy.

kyuuketsukirui : These old school authors were seriously in denial. It's almost painful to watch (yet also hilarious).

rike tikki tavi: I wanted to say Starsky & Hutch, too but then I remembered that both the guys have blue eyes, so no cigar. As for recs, one of my favorite pre-LJ fics is a Picard/Q story titled My Fair Jeanne by Ruth Grifford. I think it's actually the first ever slash story I read, and I didn't know what I was getting myself into because it's genderfuck, too. Q shows up and turn Picard into a woman, wackiness and later sex in all possible combinations ensues. Of course I'd only caught the genderfuck thing and thought it might be interesting to see Picard deal with that. So when it came to the buttsex I was sort of reading between my fingers. But boy, what an introduction to the genre.

dovil: Fanfiction: where 40 year old men can be turned into 16 year old girls with a flick of a pen. The writers equivalent of emotional castration.

thefourthvine: That is true in many cases, but the thing is - I was a 16-year-old girl, and I wasn't nearly as soppy and emotional as these guys are [in this story]. And when I got into bed naked with someone, I damn well knew it was for sex and not just, you know, totally non-sexual cuddling. Wow. For the first time ever, I'm kind of proud of 16-year-old me.

References

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