It's not like I never read h/c stories or that I hate them all.
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| Title: | It's not like I never read h/c stories or that I hate them all. |
| Creator: | Flamingo |
| Date(s): | November 10, 1999 |
| Medium: | mailing list |
| Fandom: | Starsky & Hutch |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
It's not like I never read h/c stories or that I hate them all. is a 1999 essay by Flamingo.
It was posted to The Pits Mailing List and quoted here with permission.
The essay was part of a conversation about hurt/comfort stories and male characters showing vulnerability.
Excepts
It's not like I *never* read h/c stories or that I hate them all. If I never read h/c I'd have very, very little to read since it's such a huge fan favorite and so many people enjoy it. I try to read everything that is in zine form, largely because I'm running the Archives and that's a source for a lot of it. Next, I read everything folks send me for the Archive. I have to, really. After that I have to confess that over the last year my reading of on-line (discussion list) fiction has dropped to almost nil. The Archive work has overwhelmed me, as have other responsibilities. I keep it all, but I actually get to read very very little of it.
Regarding zine fiction, I do read everything I can. If the story is h/c which it often is, especially if its gen, then I decide how I feel about it when I get there. However, I will stop reading a story that has a lot of h/c if I can tell that is the primary focus of the story (this happens more in gen which doesn't have the objective of getting the guys in a relationship). I stop reading usually because the story just can't hold my interest if this is the sole focus of the story. If I can tell there's going to be more to the story, especially emotional complications, then I will sometimes hang in there. But a long drawn out hurt scene can lose me pretty easily if I can't see the point or if it just turns me off completely, which happens. I suspect my reaction is much like a gen fan who just can't see the point of slash and is bored and disinterested by all the convolutions we go through to get the guys together.
What do I like? I like stories with a lot of emotional conflict, and/or a real plot that doesn't center around h/c exclusively. I love (on the gen site) both of Suzan Lovett's novels. They are rich in plot, characterization, and conflict. They also feature conflict between the guys, which I really enjoy. I find the "perfect couple" scenarios too limited. I really enjoy Carbook's complicated gen stories which are so unusual.
On the slash archive, I love, again Suzan Lovett's stories. (If anyone ever wanted to be a great fan writer, I would suggest you model yourself on Suzan.) Her story "A Fine Storm" is what got me into [[Starsky & Hutch]]. There's a lot on the slash archive that appeals to me, but one of my very favorites is "My True Love Gave To Me" which is without a doubt the best SH Christmas story ever written. (I like Christmas stories *less* than h/c believe it or not. But this one is great.) I love "Cost of Love," even though it's flawed. It's an incredibly dark, powerful story.
There are h/c stories I do like, but if I do, it's in spite of the h/c. I edited a h/c slash story for a friend and tried my best to get her to cut all that h/c stuff down to about a page. She hooted at me, as did others of her readers. I got through it, but I skimmed a lot of the h/c. Usually, in slash, the h/c generally sets up a situation that leads to the guys discovering their real feelings for each other. (Not an unrealistic relationship. It was largely because of a car crash I was in that my partner finally figured out how she felt about me!) In gen stories, the h/c often exists for its own sake, because that's what the fans want. (This is not criticism, only observation.) They want to have those tender moments with the guys holding each other, caring for each other, bandaging each other, crying over each other. As a h/c friend told me, "I get this soft feeling all over inside me when Hutch is cuddling Starsky in [the episode] Shootout." Me, I can't stand that ep. And [the episode "A Coffin for Starsky] -- if I never had to see that one again it would be okay with me. I definitely don't get any kind of warm, gushy feelings when they're taking care of each other. I get that when they're sleeping together! ;-) But I also get it when they're back to back shooting it out with the bad guys and also when they're nose to nose in conflict. (I do like scenes like in the [episode] Trap when S gets shot and Hutch matter-of-factly works on his leg then continues trying to get them the hell out of here.)
I have fan friends who *pity* me because I'm not into h/c. They can't imagine being in fandom and not being into h/c. "Poor Flamingo," they say, then they giggle and discuss the last h/c wallow they've found. ;-)