Strange Bedfellows (APA)/Issue 013

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Strange Bedfellows (APA) · Issue 001 · Issue 002 · Issue 003 · Issue 004 · Issue 005 · Issue 006 · Issue 007 · Issue 008 · Issue 009 · Issue 010 · Issue 011 · Issue 012 · Issue 013 · Issue 014 · Issue 015 · Issue 016 · Issue 017 · Issue 018 · Issue 019
cover of issue #13 - the original apa had a brown paper cover over it to conceal the erotic art that portrays characters from Wiseguy. The artist is Suzan Lovett and is called "Angels Don't Mind." See this illo online here.
the plain, brown paper cover for issue #13

Strange Bedfellows 13 was published in May 1996 and contains about 82 pages.

There were 32 members sharing 22 subscriptions.

From the OE

For the second time in the history of this apa, I have bound a plain brown wrapper over the cover. The first time was the inaugural issue, and the cover was a stunning Blake/Avon piece by Suzan Lovett. This isn't the inaugural issue, and they aren't Blake and Avon, but it's still Suzie's art, and it's still just as stunning. These are Frank and Vinnie, from Wiseguy, which coincidentally enough will have aired its "reunion movie" on May 2. Many thanks to Suzie for her permission to reproduce the piece here (in nothing approaching its true glory—this is nickel-a-page xerox, and slightly reduced to boot) and to [A] for arranging it.

I do not have an apazine in this issue... This is not because of postal delays, schoolwork, personal trauma, declarations of war, or Acts of God. It is because in the last twelve weeks I have written forty-eight fifty-five sixty-one thousand words of a slash novel. I hope to offer a completed draft to Manacles Press fairly soon after this apa comes out; whether they publish it is up to them. It's for Space: Above and Beyond, but trust me, it doesn't suck nearly as much as the show sometimes did.

Some Topics Discussed in "Strange Tongues"

  • Lois and Clark
  • Due South, includes a LONG character analysis of both Benton Fraser and Ray Vecchio
  • tongue-in-cheek remarks about Fraser/Diefenbaker fiction
  • comments on War of the Worlds and a story this fan has written
  • being disappointed in the recent canon installment of From Eroica with Love, and how the head canon and fannish world of a fandom often doesn't measure up to its canon
  • comments on Forever Knight, LaCroix and power, fannish interest and analysis of the relationship between LaCroix and Nick Knight
  • episodic television, tension, and expectations
  • Nero Wolfe character/s analysis
  • why so many homoerotic pro vampire novels?
  • X-Files, Mulder, and what makes him tick sexually
  • writing slash allows fans to play sexually with each other
  • this fan is working on a Eroica/Patalliro! story
  • crossovers and why they do and don't work
  • marriage as a metaphor or enactment of slash partners' commitment, is this desirable, probable? should marriage be replaced with something more tailored to slash proper is to emphasize the job partnership
  • comments on the zines, Chains of Being and Pure Maple Syrup

Excerpts from "Strange Tongues"

The notion that a Mary Sue (being a female character who admires a male hero) blocks fan enjoyment because the fan wants to do the admiring herself in an invisible hole (or vantage point, I'd say) in the story, could be a way of stating the gut feeling against some MS characters. In somewhat the same way, I will happily assert that I want to think myself into the role of the visible action hero, preferring to be a female one for verisimilitude as well as variety; and this is also called a Mary Sue by some commenters. The number of fans I've heard say they identified with the male heroes simply because those were the main active figures available in movie or TV drama, is legion, and it's generally because s/he gets to do such a lot of fun things, not merely that s/he is irresistible to the opposite (or the same) sex. On the other hand, maybe there's a subtext of empowerment in the recurring female fantasy which is expressed as finding good sex (or true love, depending on the flavor). Maybe it symbolizes negotiating a good industry-government contract or writing and marketing a good computer program: the kind of thing that wins social power, or at the least a lot of money (which is cold, hard, tangible social approval in one way that can't be faked; merely spending money is nothing, next to it). Doing any of those as a woman is, after all, as difficult as finding good sex. And it's easier to want sex, which is at least a female-identified goal for the masses. Whether the women is supposed to have a viewpoint on it with which to enjoy it or not, that's what she's there for in many popular- level images.

Good point that one advantage to writing about TV characters is that it lets us share the fantasies with relative ease. Getting someone else to appreciate one's private fantasies is more in the realm of personal (or very personal, take your pick) relationships. Yes, it's fun that playing with a commonly-known character can be a group activity no more - or less - personal than the group makes it.

Treating Mulder as necessarily an ideal lover just because he looks good and doesn't act like a jerk is every bit as insulting as the male assumption (which astounded me when I realized some men actually believe it) that a woman who looks good to them is also panting with lust for them. Strictly self-serving. Okay, Mulder is a fictional character meant among other things to serve the selves who like to assume things like that; as far as it's a fantasy, count me in. I've got the zines. As for creating a plausible and well-rounded character who could be a depiction of the whole personality presented in XF on screen, Mulder as anything but sexually murky is distinctly lacking in verisimilitude. I still think the most plausible reason for him to get into bed with anyone is that the anyone is or looks like an alien, that being Mulder's obvious basic interest in every other facet of life. If he gets the idea that Scully has some "in" with the e.t.'s, he'd suddenly find her attractive...

There's certainly something about fanfic which panders to emotional buttons; one question is why slash so often is part of the successful examples. Another question is how to explain to some fans that just because slash works for them so well and so often, doesn't mean non-slash writing can't hit those same buttons. For some readers, obviously, it never does, but the phenomenon of writers who write as well as slash, but not the same as slash is something to be cherished and reported. Lois Balzer joins Susan Matthews, Pat Nussman (before the Tarrant revelation), Deborah June Layman, Carol Hines-Stroede, Pat D'Orazio, Kate Nuernberg, Mary G.T. Webber, and undoubtedly others I don't at this moment recall. It is possible to write gripping character fiction in very fannish style without overtly breaking sexual taboos; I really wish the feat were more appreciated both in and out of the slash ghetto.

I went to Escapade and saw samples of Due South and Lois and Clark. The latter was entertaining and showed some of the character interaction that makes it so popular. However, Due South turns out to be the one that stuck. The sample at Escapade was full of sly self-referential dream sequences and imagistic stuff - if someone had told me that the show was well-made and complexly scripted, I'd have been interested a year ago, back when I was yawning and wondering just what these particular two guys did. Presently, after a bout of direct exposure to DS (under fan supervision, ten hours including plenty of chocolate and Diet Coke), I am now become a Due South junkie. I say this proudly, if with justifiable regret that the mundane world will not recognize the splendor, the joy, the life-shaking... well, no, I don't think I'll get quite that much into it, but I immediately went home and read all the DS fanfic I had, which consisted mostly of Australian-authored slash. This did not ameliorate the effect in the least.

[...]

Ray Vecchio is every bit as important [as Benton Fraser] in making the show work, since the chemistry between the two is what's driving the action as much as the showcasing of Fraser. If the show weren't ripe for slash — it looks as though the producers are courting it much as early manga/anime producers did in Japan, subtly but with awareness of the audience — it wouldn't have fans frothing after it, not even gen fans as much. The character tension, or contrast, that suggests slash makes any kind of fannish development work well. (Maybe the producers think they're courting gen fans.) The show is a textbook case of presenting barriers to intimacy that the fan writer can overcome, by means ranging from the complex, to the facile, to the downright stupid.

It may just be an effect of the effort in fanwriting to get slash going, but it's interesting that Vecchio, in the fanfic I've read, is invariably given as at least rational about gay issues, even when he's not up for the idea (yet, this being slash) in the story. No doubt the 90's have had some effect; it's easier to say that a conscious adult would have a vaguely tolerant attitude toward gays as a default by now. Many people never have a thought in their heads and some still are bigots for that reason or others, but this is a police detective who wears multicolored shirts as urban camouflage, i.e., someone who's aware of certain complexities of life. Even so, the Italian Catholic stereotypes and some aspects of the screen character proper suggest that he'd have a few barriers between the surface personality and gay abandon, but all the fanfic I've seen takes the tack that he's ready to leap those barriers for the right guy. Or already has. The one whole zine I've seen on the show is Pure Maple Syrup, most (not all) of which is of the happy-ending sort and which encompasses enough variety that everyone will surely find at least one story to dislike. It's notable for strong use of the character voices - the few U.S.-authored stories I've seen [in other zines] all miss this to some degree — and generally good construction overall. However, the writing there never quite covers this point of how and why Vecchio somehow suddenly turns up gay. Bozza and her (other) writers apparently consider that there's nothing out of the ordinary in an intelligent adult being so self-aware gay/bi that he doesn't bother to mention it until it becomes relevant, i.e., when he's trying to chat up his unofficial and very hunky partner. I really like this attitude in the abstract (and in a fair number of the slash stories it pops up in); this is how things ought to be and it's a laudable social goal. However, I'm not sure it's the most likely premise for an Italian-Catholic policeman in real-world Chicago.

I've written, of all things, a slash story based on War of the Worlds, partly because I'd been corresponding with fans of the show and got some ideas that seemed worthwhile. If you recall this show, you may remember that the first season starred a quartet of characters carefully chosen for total contrast (i.e., incompatibility) coping with an impossible and deadly situation. Seeing as this contains nearly all the elements that engender hothouse slash if any two of the characters are male — this being TV, three of them are, of assorted flavors and colors, but all pretty.

I'd frankly have expected more miscellaneous slash on the show than ever appeared. Well, fandom was busy with the B7 feud at the time, or something, and besides the show itself wasn't great. But it had a great outline. I mean, H.G. Wells and Orson Wells, updated with cute actors? How could you go wrong? (By overdoing the gore-n-slime factor, for one, and by yanking the best characters after the first season, for two, and I could go on... but it did have a great outline.) In retrospect, I think it could have been trying to play on the paranoia-with-government-shadow- forces, not to mention aliens-among-us, that X-Files is currently exploiting to such good effect, but the times or the scriptwriters weren't ready for it then.

Before all that with Due South happened, I'd spent the winter typing in sentences on three different stories and erasing them in disgust, for months, which equals nothing written and finished, and I was getting really depressed with myself, so when I got the WotW idea, I didn't see how it could do any harm to try something different. And that one nearly wrote itself, no problems, in about a week, except that I was making it up almost whole since I hadn't seen the show for years. Which might be the point — I like Eroica and its cousins partly because the translation factor means I can play around with style and even content a good deal and generally do more of it myself, without having to start from scratch. So I may have completely rewritten WotW to suit what I wanted it to be, instead of what it ever was. Well, this is basically what fans do anyway, isn't it?

Diefenbaker in Due South gives Fraser yet another opportunity to demonstrate how witty he can be in interactions that aren't involved with a human personal life. In pursuit of the really kinky aspects of the theory that Fraser must have something serious to hide and doesn't manage some kinds of human relationships very well, I can see as a concept stories that slash Fraser/Diefenbaker - since the wolf is given as very much an interactive, rather than a dependent, character. I don't have to like them. But you might. No, I shan't elaborate. Do you think I am writing this merely for your information? If this disgusting idea actually makes you quiver with poorly-contained passion, you'll have to do something about it yourself.

Crises of fannish faith in the source can be dreadful, but after a point they're almost to be expected. Now that you've spent years adding to your own and fandom's understanding of Eroica, the plain old Eroica doesn't contain it all. For what it's worth, most of the readers I've heard from say that the "Nosferatu" story wasn't quite what they'd been hoping for, even if it was better than nothing. They may have the same reasons you do for coming to that conclusion, after the six-year hiatus. Either way, the original manga Eroica isn't ever going to be the fannish dream of Eroica, any more than Trek proper actually contained K/S as more than a distant (and mostly unintended) implication. Also for what it's worth, Aoike has written an Eroica #16 which is being serialized in Viva Princess as I write this. It's called "Dragon Palace" or something of the sort and involves Chinese artifacts and complications. It's longer and perhaps more interesting as a story than #15. If eventually both of these leave you feeling that they're not what you got into Eroica for, at least you'll have given it every chance. The manga also has changed a good deal in tone and somewhat in emphasis over its run, the early episodes being noticeably more "romantic," surreal, long-legged, and altogether more shojo than the later ones, which are more of spy drama. I always thought Dorian doing theft getaways in a zepplin was ludicrous, but the rest of the storyline was also stylized to that extent: Dorian's romantic pretensions were all of a piece. Dorian sighing after Klaus with only tiny bits of paradoxical subtle encouragement has a romance of its own as well, but only as long as the tiny bits of paradoxical encouragement can be seen, which is even more difficult in "Nosferatu" than in the 1980's episodes.

the outré attraction of LaCroix for fans is of course power, including that of indifference to humanity. The thought that indifference is power is a bit startling; it takes a very strong case of it to be anything but a defense, but LaCroix is in a position where that can work. He's also clearly an authority figure as far as vampires acknowledge one, and authority is a standard attraction for many fans as well as everyone else. How this group intersects with the fans who prefer young, pretty men (who haven't had time to garner a lot of authority) I'm not sure. But it occurs to me suddenly that a vampire often combines the two attractions: Power over men's minds (or sheer indifference to humanity's concerns) plus the glamour of ageless beauty. This may account for the persistent fascination of vampires to the shallow-minded reading public. And fans. Naughty thoughts: By lowest-common-denominator fan practice Nick Knight should have been raped by LaCroix (repeatedly), since Nick is younger, shorter, and blond; if he weren't blond, he'd merely have had submissive sex with LaCroix since shortly before his conversion to a vampire. (:-))

I agree that relationships of all kinds have a dynamic progress, not just romances. The episodic nature of series TV shows is a fiction in itself; either the characters do show the effects of time and cumulative interaction, or the episodes might as well be taking place in parallel instead of in sequence, which seems to have been the concept in many early sitcoms and the like. Some relationships, like friendship or being stuck in a spaceship together, can last through a number of variations and developments, but typical m/f romances need more of a beginning-middle-end structure, whether the end has the couple parting or changing to a more stable relationship. Committed love relationships perhaps could tolerate the long-term variations and developments of an ongoing drama, but I'm not sure TV has been too good at showing them in that light. No doubt fanfic can be sorted into the broad categories of: stories that fit into the static, ongoing situation the show postulates, and stories that make an ending to that situation or a qualitative change in it. Which is more compelling, dynamic tension or closure?

Your description of the dilemma in Incredible Hulk is very precise and affecting, with a lovely analysis of why masked identities are so dramatic, so much used in lurid fiction, and so satisfying. Even Peter Wimsey used what was effectively an alias (even if it was his own middle names) when he felt the need for misdirection. In slightly less lurid fiction, the heroes may not have separate names and technicolor costumes for their overtly active, crime-fighting (or whatever) work, but there is a definite difference between the on-duty Professionals coolly brandishing their big guns because that is the tool of their trade (all Freudian implications happily accepted) and Bodie or Doyle doing the laundry or shopping for groceries. The tension between these two personas is the important thing, in good scripting or fanwriting alike: one can't omit the everyday persona without losing something in the character. Equally, one can't omit the action-hero aspect either, even when the story is about two guys in love doing their laundry, or you have... a story about two gay guys doing their laundry, instead of slash.

In your APAzine a couple of issues ago, you leapt directly from Mary Sue to a point I've been thinking about lately, that a female fan might write a story with "herself" in it as a female character, but she could also write herself in by identifying with one of the male heroes (or, I assume, a created male character). This would parallel how female TV viewers identify sometimes with female characters, but often simply with the lead, or heroic character, as male viewers presumably are meant to. The obvious resolution here would be to identify with a female heroic lead if one is available in the show. As may be evident from other comments I've made, I'm enthusiastic about this solution, even though it seems not to be an option much used among slash writers. I really think fandom is ripe for (well, ripening toward) a genre of slash-like stories which aren't exclusively m/m, or even same-sex. If you (or anyone) hears of a term for this genre — "slash" having been vetoed by many fans who like the narrower definition the term was first coined to designate — I'd like to hear about it.

I'm still enjoying FKn, but I haven't seen a single Nick/LaCroix story that does a thing for me. I've hardly seen a N/LaC story at all, for that matter. For all that it's the main theme slash FKn fans like to discuss, I don't get the impression that there's all that much composed fiction on the topic. Is there a Rosetta Stone of N/LaC slash somewhere that makes it all comprehensible, and even worthwhile? Anyone?

Some Topics Discussed in "Cat's Darkling Zone"

  • The A-Team
  • figure skating
  • The Hat Squad
  • From Eroica with Love
  • "The current trend in homosexual vampires: vampires are traditionally ambiguous people. How would you call creatures menstruating in reverse?"
  • "I prefer a angst-filed stories with self-doubts and guilt trips, but that is my personal preference."

Excerpts from "Cat's Darkling Zone"

My most striking encounter with this series [Highlander] was at the Worldcon in Glasgow. There was a Highlander fan club, and the women behind it (Alice Pangolini or something), claimed to be Miguel Ferrer's mother-in-law and insisted on taking a picture of my T-shirt with my Miguel Ferrer picture on it, because she didn't know he was so big in Europe. (Well, the T-shirt size was extra-large, but that wasn't what she meant). She promised to have him sent me an autographed picture, but I haven't received anything, sigh. I joined the HL fan-club and bought a little Celtic patterned hair-tie. The woman seemed too sincere to make this merely a plot for me to join a HL merchandising club. I hope.

Mulder/Scully, with Mulder's romantic interest being secondary: I'd love that. I'm always fond of slash taking second seat to the plot. I've only seen Krycek with Mulder's dad, Part One, so he lacks definition to me.

Looking at the cover [of the last issue], I feel I've done something terribly wrong to the bridge of H.M. Murdock's nose. I hate that feeling.

The traditional couple in the A-Team is unfortunately Hannibal/Face, but that is the easy way out. Inspired flights of fancy, rampant lunacy, these allow H.M. the wider range of expression. In the episode where Frankie Santana is introduced, on discovery that Baracas is safe, H.M. jumps on him and covers him with kisses, not just his face, but anywhere he can make contact. Then he holds him by the shoulder and refuses to let him go during the whole scene. I watched this again and again, and in stow motion... Rhaaa, lovely!

The intensity of the emotional interaction between those is legitimated by Murdock's madness: Baracas can thus, with gruff down-to-earthness, brush off the full implication of the loony's displays of affection. Baracas tries alternatively to discount or to control H.M.'s madness. It never really works, but their constant arguing and bickering giving me an emotional charge.

Some Topics Discussed in "Twinbear"

Excerpts from "Twin Bear"

Nice cover, CAT. The black guy is Sgt. Bosco 'B.A.' (Bad Attitude) Baracus of The A-Team, about which no slash stories, to my knowledge, were ever written. Which brings up a question. Why are black men underrepresented in slash stories? Yes, you can argue that there aren't many in leading roles in action-adventure series, but there are some.

Yet Miami Vice seems to be much more Crockett/Castillo than Crockett/Tubbs; I haven't read any Lethal Weapon slash; no stories involving Jax of the Professionals (yes, he's a minor character, but so is Murphy and he gets screwed senseless regularly). No Deep Space Nine with Sisko, nothing from that Fox black paralyzed superhero show whose name I can't recall (Manta?). His assistant was named Hawke and those two were made for each other; nothing between Lord Bowler and Brisco Country (ditto) or with Winston of the Ghostbusters or Lando Calrissian?

[...]

Is it because we (the Americans among us) are all racists? Well, of course we are -- we live and were raised in a racist time and place. But few of us, that I have noticed, are bigots. Are we buying into the homophobia prevalent among black males? I doubt it; we don't buy into the homophobia prevalent among white males. Are we afraid of using or misusing a cultural background foreign to most middle-class white Americans? Possibly; most slash stories appear to be set in backgrounds that are close to generic, either entirely imaginary or recycled from media fiction. Slash stories don't usually use a setting that is both foreign and real.

Still, it just seems odd. One of the pairs in many slash partnerships often seems chosen because he is an alien, an outcast, an outsider to the norms of the culture in power.

A black man would seem to fit that role rather better than most. But they're just not here. Basically, I think it is because slash often represents the reconciliation of opposing forces, and when applied to race relations in present day America, that symbolic accord is beyond the imagination of most of us. I may be unduly influenced by one of the few good black/white stories I can think of, a Hutch/Huggy Bear by Paula Smith which was an edgy exploration of differences and dominances.

I find it interesting that Scully of the X-Files was supposed to have a life-, -er, a boyfriend/lover (not Mulder) in the pilot episode, but the scene was written out and not replaced. On one hand, I'm ironically amused that a single woman on TV is allowed to be independent, rational, aggressive, intelligent and professional—but not sexual. On the other hand, I'm pathetically grateful that they're showing a career-oriented woman in the sciences who doesn't have a sex-life either. Finally, a role model.

I rather liked Dax's lesbian episode, in spite of the fact it specifically contradicted facts laid forth in the very first Trill episode, on TNG, when Beverly fell in love with a Trill man, then was not inclined to continue the relationship after he became a she. The Trill showed no hesitation at all. Only proves my contention that I was the only person on Earth who ever watched TNG.

Have you started the Lymond series yet? Lots of slash there, implicit and darn near explicit as well, if I remember correctly. I just felt cheated, wading through 15,000 pages of hurt for ½ page of comfort.

Not only do I not find my own sex scenes arousing, I don't even like the story itself once it's finished and down on paper for a month or so. Now, some of these stories have been hanging around the back of my head for literally (and literately) decades, furnishing cheap thrills on request. Drag them out into the light of print and they're gone, exorcised as surely as Jason without his hockey mask. It would be kinda sad if it weren't for the fact that ten more sprout up to take their place.

I am now depressed. An editor asked me to submit a story, and I spent a lot of time and effort to finish it in three weeks. (writing, for me, is neither quick nor easy; it feels more like squeezing concrete out of a titanium toothpaste tube). Yesterday, after mutual, polite discussion, we decided she would not publish it. And it feels as if I was rejected; that it was the character's fault, and the fault of the part of me who was inside that character. And it was my fault. I did not know the zined, nor she me; I did not pick up on the type of story she was looking for (lots of sex and no plot, in her words; I generally find those kind of stories boring and don't often write them), and I did not ask her what kind of editing she does. (Heavy, on all levels.) I'll take suggestions on edits, but frankly, alter twenty-four years of writing, I write something a particular way because that's the way I want it. . . But the most compelling reason I write is to please other people; because someone wants a story. Writing is just too hard. I don't write often, or quickly, or enthusiastically, for just myself.

I enjoyed [Gayle F's] Prince of Cups very much. It's an excellent historical romance — both accurate and interesting in historical detail (as far as I could tell) and richly sensuous in style. It's not slash, and shouldn't be compared to a slash story, any more than a gorgeous, pedigreed Golden Lab should be entered in a cat show. Gayle didn't write it for the 1,000 or so slash fans, she wrote it for the 100,000 or so historical romance fans, who could afford to pay her for it.

The best slash horror story I remember was an AU where Bodie was a computer consultant and Ray was a writer whose father (?) had sold Ray's soul to the devil before he was born. Excellent novel, very scary, great characterizations. Anyone out there remember the author or title? As for worst, who would want to remember?

As far as gender and species attachment goes, I remember a sex scene (by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, in her Kraith series?) which took place between tri-sexual, grey scaled amphibians, which was one of the hottest things I've ever read. Yowza.

Some Topics Discussed in "Mardi Gras Favors"

  • mainstream romance books by Gayle F
  • testing to see if fanfic writers' names would "pop up on the Net browser"
  • the con, Con-Troll

Excerpts from "Mardi Gras Favors"

Someone actually went to bed with Mulder? He looks almost too twitchy to even be able to sleep. Wherever can we find a copy of the BEST OF LIES by Cody Nelson to read how this unexpected feat was accomplished?

Actually received something from MediaWest in February. It was a form listing other hotels for which we could indicate a numerical preference and then return it to MW. At this late date wouldn't it be much simpler to list other hotels available & their numbers and let us call them ourselves? Especially, as it's so late? Good thing I made the reservation last October.

Has anyone seen MW's Web page?

I wondered whether any fanfic writers' names would pop up on the Net browser so I tried several. [Gayle F's] name brought up a plain site with a lavender-colored background. It listed excerpts from her first mainstream novel PRINCE OF CUPS, then MARIAN (out in the fall) and her work in progress. Since I hadn't seen MARIAN I pulled that in. Mistake. I read about Marian a "warrior maid" as written in the romance sensibility style. Gayle - have you completely lost your taste?

Houston's sf convention Con-Troll 96 is over for another year. I especially loved this year's as the guests C.J. Cherryh, Jane Fancher & Harry Harrison are some of my favorite sf writers. The panel they were on "Getting Started as a Professional Writer" was a marvelous showcase for the variety of backgrounds from which writers arise. Jane Fancher summed the panel when she said "Ah aspiring writers! Most of you I can't help. Some of you I can't stop." And the one thing they all agreed on - with some awful stories - was that there is a special place in hell for publishers - right next to the agents.

Some Topics Discussed in "The Magic May Return"

  • much about From Eroica with Love and the differences in the Japanese and American fandoms
  • being a Star Trek: TNG fan
  • "The wonders of fanfic, and all the energy it releases. It's like suddenly being able to manufacture your own heroin."
  • Babylon 5

Excerpts from "The Magic May Return"

It was the late summer of '93, one week to the day after my entry into fandom, and I was as green as a novice can be. I didn't even know that fandom was what had happened to me. It felt more like a religious experience or a drug high. "Wow - there's colour in the world again, and absolutely anything could happen, and boy isn't life amazing!"

About Talia/Ivanova. It's up to JMS to say 'the implication was definitely that they had sex' if you assume he's meaning something like 'the implication which I intended to convey' or 'which I hoped the viewers would pick up,' whether they did or not. He directed it (or whatever), he gets to decide what he wants to imply rather than show baldly. Of course, it might have been nice if he'd showed it baldly, from the aspect of liberating the small screen; and the Susan/Talia fans would have liked it, even though it would make me sick. (Can't abide Talia. Glad she's gone. No woman who wears lipstick in the shower is worth crying over. Or did she put it on after? No matter. No woman who wears lipstick to bed is worth crying over either. It's hell to get off the pillowcases.)

One thing to note about the Japanese version is that the early yaoi comics featured extremely feminine males. (One hesitates to call the willowy school boys of 'Wind and Tree Song' men.) That fits in nicely with the long Japanese tradition of bishonen worship, which was originally, as [S] pointed out back a ways, something that men of the samurai class did but not, so far as I know, women in any class. (Although I've often wondered if it was only samurai men - and female - starved townsmen in Edo aping their betters - who went in for teen-aged boys. What about those Kyoto court nobles that the samurai always looked down on as effete and decadent? Effete and decadent how? one wants to ask. Pederastic? Or maybe, like the ancient Greeks, the samurai believed that effeminacy expressed itself in an over-fondness for women. Certainly in the current historical dramas, it's the lisping court noble with his heavy make-up who inevitably attempts to ravish the heroine.) The cross-over of bishonen into the female realm happened I think in the first quarter of the present century when illustrated books for girls began to feature bishonen heroes. There was an interesting exhibit of these books, full of dewy darkeyed rose-lipped youths, at the Yayoi Museum in Tokyo, which specializes in popular art of the period. (And that's Yayoi, as in the old name for March and the section of Tokyo where prehistoric fossils were found which gave the name to a period of Japanese history. No relation to yaoi, which is supposedly an acronym for 'yama nashi, owari nashi, imi nashi' (no mountain = climax, no ending, no meaning), a capsule summary of the contents of most Japanese slash. The extremely effeminate males of 80's professional yaoi have since been joined by more (physically, if not psychologically) believable specimens. Manga still has a preference for tall and thin, with plenty of hair; but the dewy eyes and rose lips have been replaced by Minami Ozaki's pointed faces, and a certain tendency to sketchiness is evident. There are also muscular guys beefy enough to make a real gay man happy, and quite ordinary nondescript kids who're just your average teenager on the block - who happens to be in love with the guy who sits two rows down at school. These types are to be found in the manga published in book form by B-Boy and June, and the host of June (as subject matter) magazines and manga collections that have popped up like mushrooms in the last two or three years: Reijin, Maurice, Hanaoto, Sash, Breath, Shion, and on, and on...

I hadn't really noticed how thorough-going this coded feminization was [in Japan], at least in the series I read, because I was accustomed to thinking in the Japanese way. I know these guys are guys because it's June so they have to be guys.' Then I came to pack my collection of zines to mail home [to Canada], and had to consider the them being opened by Canada Customs. Our obscenity laws are childishly simple: if the customs officer thinks something's obscene, it is, and it gets impounded. If you want it back, you have to prove that it's not. Short of getting a court ruling, that's very difficult to accomplish.

[...]

In any case, Canada Customs is particularly rabid about gay material, and so I was anxiously putting the most explicit zines at the bottom of the box - until I reaped that, Japanese obscenity laws being what they are, there's no physio logical indication that the characters are male, and one of them almost always appears to the western eye as female. I remembered all my non-slash gaijin friends who'd looked at whatever dojinshi I was reading and asked 'Who's she?' Hell, I remembered looking at my sister's perfectly straight Seiya posters and asking "Who's she?" To us they look like women. The question then is, do the Japanese intend them (consciously or not) to be 'women' as well. I think some characters are coded that way: the ones who talk like women and say 'Iya da' a lot while being raped having sex. ('No, no!' which in female Japanese can also mean 'Yes, yes,' for cultural reasons which would take a book to explain.)

I've got dual vision on fill-in-the-blanks slash, because that's what the Japanese do, nine times out of ten. All that's required to put two guys together is that there be a connection of some description between them. Are they cousins? Let's put them in bed together. Brothers? Let's put them in bed together. On the same team? Let's put them in bed together. In the same series? Let's put them in bed together. Have we put everybody else into couples and these are the odd men out? Let's put them in bed together. Do they like each other? Let's put them in bed together. Hate each other? Let's definitely put them in bed together - only let's tie one of them up first and have the other rape him. (One of the plusses of having rape as the default mode of sex in the dojinshi.) I'm not saying slash on a psychological basis doesn't exist, just that it's not considered a necessity in the fundamentally pornographic world of the dojinshi. (I'm using pornographic to mean anonymous bodies having sex quite independent of what the attached heads may be thinking about it.) It may well be that the comic format lends itself more easily to this genre than the short story. The pictorial form has less room for psychological explication to start with, and it does carry its own conviction. 'How could these two guys get together? Well, just look - there they are.'

... another of the conventions of amateur artists, which is that women don't draw straight sex because that's the dirty stuff that guys draw? Like the other rules, this one is breaking down, especially in the gaming zines: but in general, m/f is male territory, and almost by definition means guys with huge penises raping women with huge breasts. There doesn't seem to be an amateur genre with romance, tenderness, and hot sex in a heterosexual mode (though there are professional ones.) So if a woman wants to draw it, she has to do it disguised as slash.

I'll watch Randall and Hopkirk with you in any fashion you want, but you aren't really going to wish that little pudge of a ghost on the delicious Jeff Randall, surely?

Star Trek wars. State biases and press 'Enter'. I'm a TNG fan.

[...]

I must find out what's so wonderful about the DS9 universe; but I have to say that the early episodes (1st and 2nd season, I suppose) seen on vid[eos] didn't do anything much for me. I agree, it's more baroque than TNG. No argument. Just, I like a little tempered restraint to my baroqueness: and where are the Picards and Datas of DS9? Yes Q and Loxwanna (so that's how you spell it) are marvellous characters, and I like Geordi (because he's a genuinely likable person: nice to see the cheerful well-adjusted types getting their innings). And indeed, Beverley, Riker, Whorf and Troi (in ascending order of cringe) are an embarrassment. But still - when was the last time you had a captain that you could happily listen to reading the phone book? When have you had an alien who was completely alone: without a race of his own somewhere, a culture shared with others of his kind? Sorry, I won't give ground on the delights of Picard and Data.

AU this comes with the caveat that by me, all the Trek avatars from Classic on have been, in [S's] wonderful phrase, wince-worthy. I wince by anticipation as I put the cassette into the deck. It's a reflex, too often justified by experience. (The Ferengi embarrass me too. Sorry. So does Kira. So does Sisko. So does...)

If it's any comfort, the Japanese fans didn't much care for Nosferatu (last year's Eroica story) either. 'Too many gag routines' was the consensus. The one currently running in the monthly Princess is a little more promising. A little. Dorian seems to be for once, and finally, actively in sexual pursuit of another man. (Two other men: both deadly Chinese spies). It would be nice if that went somewhere, but I'm willing to bet it doesn't.

Let's face facts: it's unlikely that the source material will provide any insights that we western fans ran use, since we're all trying to find support for a slash relationship that the artist is determined not to give us. Aoike isn't interested in getting Eroica together with Klaus, and seems, these days, only mildly interested in Dorian himself. One can trace, through the published manga, the melancholy decline of Dorian from shojo hero to comic relief to someone who exists to get in the way of the real hero, who is Klaus. I'd be delighted if next month's installment would prove me wrong, but again, I'm willing to bet money it won't.

However, does any of this have to bother us? Reliance on canon is a western preoccupation. The Japanese just take the pretty faces and the pretty bodies and do what they like with them. Damn the canon - and, often enough, the psychology - full speed ahead. Bedwards.

There's a certain liberating exhilaration in the attitude, as there is a lot of fourth-wave stuff. The fandom, on sheer numbers alone, must offer more possibilities than the source, for one. And for two, when the source is in a foreign language that most people don't read, from a country with as bad a cultural fit to our own as Japan (the Japanese think James is cuter than Dorian. The Japanese think James is funny.) the source isn't going to be much help to start with.

I began by reading English Eroica fanfic, and only then went back to read the manga; and frankly, the manga was never much of an inspiration. If there'd been good Eroica dojinshi ("zines" in Japanese: 'do' = same, 'jin' = people, 'shi' = publication) it might have been different, but there aren't. Japanese dojinshi can be a great source of both stories and interpretation, given the right series, but the rule seems to be 'the more minimal the series, the better the fanfic' (as in the west, the suggested is much more resonant than the depicted). It may be that Eroica just gives the Japanese fans too much to work with and leaves them with nothing to do. It may be that the Japanese fans in fact prefer the relationship as it is: Dorian pining for his Iron Unhavable Major. (Klaus wouldn't be Klaus if he was havable.)

One Japanese woman told me that Dorian is just too beautiful to be interesting. The reasons are doubtless many and varied, but the end result is that there are now effectively two versions of Eroica going, the Japanese and the English. And as far as I'm concerned, and for my own purposes, Eroica exists much more satisfyingly in its western, English fandom than in anything Aoike is likely to come up with.

Some Topics Discussed in "Desert Blooms"

Excerpts from "Desert Blooms"

So what is it about hearing a song on the radio that makes it so much more inspiring? Is it the play of fates, the chance occurrence of tuning in at the exact moment when someone else somewhere decides to play it? Is it the handing over of control to chance, to the whim of little waves bumbling around in the air until they happen upon your radio that makes it sound so much better, so much purer and truer and meaningful? There are songs I listen to constantly, more often than I will admit to even a group of obsessed fans, yet when I'm driving home from work and one comes on the radio it's like hearing it for the first time. The pleasure is greater because the infinite number of events leading up to that particular song appearing (or sounding) on my radio is so beyond comprehension as to be unimaginable.

I'm really enjoying having my own internet access at home instead of trying to discreetly use the work address. I'm keeping up with many more fen (slash and music) than in the past and having loads of fun with all the different fun fan lists I'm on. With so many lists for everything imaginable, I think cyber fandom is really broadening the whole concept of slash slut. One can access so much info, interact with untold numbers of fans and quasi-fans, and discuss everything at whatever hour you choose (late at night is my preference) that it seems kind of silly to even leave the house some days!

Yet with all this cyber fun, I'm feeling a little out of sorts with slash fiction these days. It could be the heat. It could be the stress at work or the house being so filthy I'm embarrassed to even have [N] see it. But I'm just uninspired with slashdom. I'm not finding much new to read that interests me and the old stuff is just that, old stuff. I don't have the spark right now to enjoy it and I'm a tad concerned. I don't really know what I want or who I want, I just know I'm not finding it. And the worst part is I've been completely uninspired to write. I have several stories started, and a number of ideas jotted down, but I can't seem to get myself to just sit down and write!

[...]

Now, and this is the point, here are 2 perfectly good, potentially interesting fandoms [Due South and Garak/Bashir] that I haven't explored yet, and I'm just not very interested. What's happened to that wondrous spark, that joy that comes with finding a, gasp, new fandom, that all-consuming need to devour everything written or on video? Why am I finding myself so non-committal about slash? I wish I knew. I wish I could jump start my obsession. Maybe this is a phase, a cycle, an episode. I sure hope the weather cools off (fat chance) and I rediscover my passion for fandom. So, is anyone else facing this slash-ennui? Is anyone else looking at the piles and boxes of zines and wondering what the house would look like with some empty space?

Some Topics Discussed in "Thoughts of Love and Thoughts of Power"

Excerpts from "Thoughts of Love and Thoughts of Power"

DUE SOUTH!!! This is a great show. I am a fan of Ray, in a sudden change to keep all of you guessing, I am not as fond of big, dark and handsome as I am of balding, sarcastic and great smile. Thin and interesting dresser, in a sort of Al Calavicchi way, as well as witty and clever.

[...]

In terms of general characterization, I would agree with [L] that, at least on the surface, Fraser is Dudley Do-Right only more boring. One crack in that facade is how he will say nothing, or completely agree with Ray about some situation until Ray give in and does what Fraser wants. Subtle yet manipulative, which has a bunch of potential in fannish hands. Vecchio's more obvious foibles are highlighted against the red-serge backdrop of Fraser's oh-so-boy-scout facade. They are both deliciously complicated, it s just that Ray s complications are more visible. Or maybe I just have a thing about partners who shoot their partners. Fraser, shallow cad, was going to run away with Victoria Metcalfa woman (albeit an exceedingly smart and beautiful woman) and leave Vecchio with no house, no career and no friends So, through a series of amazing turns, Vecchio winds up shooting him. Oh dear. By accident of course. Delicious. Oh dear.

I recently saw a story with Natalie/Janette from FK (written by a guy) and I read it, thinking the whole time that the sex was boring and (following the same reasoning I have often both expounded and heard expound for slash) was what he wanted to write. I was mystified. It was not hot sex, really, no twisted power dynamic, no sense of wonder ("will she like it when I...) and no consequences, except that Nick might be a tad upset. But nothing he wouldn't get over (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). I mean, OK, Janette is a vampire and it's possible that Natalie could be killed, but none of that was present in the story. I wonder if this is how some men respond to reading slash the first time. The two test subjects I have experimented on were much more overwhelmed by the idea and men (rather reluctantly, I must add) admitted that it was kind of exciting, at least to think about doing. So, what would make the dynamic between two women similar to that between two men? I don't know that (yet) but tentatively I think that there is a potential between men, who have a great deal of societal power, to express their sexuality much more dangerously than women. In many ways they have more to lose. Women have lost so much already. And while I don't buy a victim ideology, I do think that there are privileges men have and stand to lose that women are excluded from having. Lesbianism and bi-sexuality are quite subversive and dangerous, but not in the way the sex between men can be.

Some Topics Discussed in "Untitled by M G"

Excerpts from "Untitled by M G"

BAB5 - What can I say? Nobody is writing slash much, and I have to say I understand why. I mean, that person might get killed or turn out to be a shadow-person or a traitor before you finish the story, and then what? But the show is riveting, esp since it is such a plot driven beast in the main, with only peripheral character driven strings.

DSOUTH — Very much enjoying this season, and there is some good fanfic. I'm waiting for the fic to grow up a bit, though. I am perfectly capable of enjoying any number of "awww, true love and so sweet' stories, I find the series' own darkness, tragedy and irony to be insufficiently represented in the fanfic yet.

Fraser's reserve, loneliness and manifest problems are intriguing, and the man is very pretty. But no one who knows my devotion to both Frank McPike and Jonathan Banks will be too terribly surprised to find that I prefer Ray and David Marciano. Smart-mouthed sarcastic bastards keeping the world at a distance appeal quite a lot, as do actors that put equal and devastating intensity into playing passionate kisses and insane psychopaths. The shallow hair-fan in me prefers both Jonathan B and David M with more and longer hair, but I'm also happy neither guy has bought a toupee (inconsistent? nah, I just want them not to have lost their hair.)

As a slash couple Fraser and Ray should have some unique possibilities. Again, not represented yet in the fanfic, but time will tell. And the show certainly keeps handing slash fans Significant Moments by the plateful.

INTERNET AND FANDOM - Discussion exists about whether shows have backed off slash friendly elements after show-connected lurkers on lists have seen slash fans speculating about certain partnerships, i.e. Garak/Bashir, and taken the information back to the powers that be for the show. Are They that paranoid? Are there enough slash comments that they could care? There is very little possibility anyone will ever admit to making changes in a show based on fan comment (expect possibly JMS!)

XFILES — I'd have to say I'm in agreement with David Duchovny's original estimation that the show might go three years. Plots are falling off this year, as is writing quality with a couple of exceptions. Everybody catch Carter's expansion in TV Guide of his original series rule that there would be no romantic relationship between Mulder and Scully? He expanded this to include no romantic relationship between Scully and Skinner or Mulder and Skinner. Hah! Maybe he just gave a few people that hadn't thought of it some new ideas. And what I have to say to him is now about no romance, just hot sex?

Some Topics Discussed in "Beheaded and Lobotomized"

Excerpts from "Beheaded and Lobotomized"

Xena, I heard? read online? that Xena had been prominently featured in some American lesbian magazines. Am I surprised in the least? But I would like to venture our on a lonely limb: there doesn't seem to be any blossoming of slash fandom for Xena/Gabrielle or for Hercules/Iolus even though the pairings are obvious and constantly thrown in our faces. My arboreal point being that I think there would be tons of slash (about H/I and maybe 100 pounds or so of X/G) if the shows were serious and dramatic. That they are comic/tongue-in-cheek and action-oriented seems to render them undesirable of having their own slash fandoms. Are there any comic (and I mean funny as opposed to comics) shows that have engendered substantial slash followings? One-offs and/or a few stories do not qualify. (I have published M. Fae's Red Dwarf, Jeeves and Wooster, and Black Adder stories, and they were never meant to be taken seriously. And where does UNCLE fall into this? Is it an exception or was it serious enough to overcome its campiness? Hmm?

Have you been to the slash doctor yet? Are you taking your slash pills faithfully? I mean what is happening with you? You keep becoming a fan of shows where the slash potential ranges from nil to limited. Let's see, there was Kung Fu: TLC, X-Files, and now Due South. I suppose you watch Bab 5 too. Keep this up and we'll have to drum you out of the slash corps.

Seriously, regarding your general topic here (and elsewhere) about generic slash, lack of correct psychological motivation, failure to understand the basic characters, etc.— my reaction is yes? This is something new? You know it's always been true of the majority of slash stories. The best writers get beyond all that and write brilliant stuff. A lot of what you're willing to love (or at least read) probably depends to some degree on a number of personal factors including (but not restricted to, YMMV) the depth of your love for the show, how much has already been published about the characters, whether or not Sebastian is writing in this fandom, and your slash innocence. And, honey, you no got no slash innocence. You been round the slash block so many times, you done worn a groove, filled it with water and called it a moat.

But don't let me keep you from moaning. It's all very entertaining.

Your question about slash horror stories. How do you define horror? There exist a couple of Pros circuit stories (and I truly don't remember titles or author) that were AU and had (as best I can recall) Ray Doyle really underage and being sexually abused. (I don't think it was by Bodie.) Now the circumstances of my reading were sitting in the hotel lobby at a long ago LOSCON surrounded by noisy, milling crowds. These were not ideal conditions and because I found the subject so horrific, I may have confused what the author intended. Still, I kept muttering to myself how terrible the thing was and I didn't mean in terms of writing skill. That's an example of a real slash "horror" story. And you have to understand I'm not easily offended by content. (Everyone know that my secret slash vice is brother/brother incest. Make 'em redheaded identical twins [1] and I'm yours for life.)

I suppose a more conventional slash horror story would be M. Fae's "The Farmer's Wife." I think you could say of it and other pieces that you don't read them for the emotional intimacy and undying romantic love of a more traditional story. I think they work best if they are used to illuminate some aspect of the characters, or at least to emphasize something in the characters that my not always be recognized or accepted by other fans. Would you consider vampire slash to be horror? Forever Knight has become quite popular and its main slash couple are two longtime killers. Or am conflating standard "horror" with "slash" and coming out with not at all what you meant?

Back to Helen Raven's "The Same River." Ah yes, that would qualify as "slash horror" but I'd also put it down a very tragic, doomed love story, structured so that the ending was inevitable. In that sense, it's not really "horror" at all.

Reyr far ranging discussion on the term "slash" and what it connotes. When I hear the term, my immediate assumption is two men (regardless of queerness) involved in a relationship that will probably (hopefully) lead to hot sex. I do not think of two women unless the term has been qualified (e.g. f/f). I would never use the term slash to describe a male/female pairing. (Although I have heard it argued that Scully/Mulder ought to be called slash because the relationship follows along the lines of so many standard slash ones, I don't quite buy it. Interesting idea, however.) This may not be fair, but it is so. Not to argue the whys for the lack of f/f slash, but as there is so little of it, it's not the default definition of the term slash. I think the more interesting question here might be whether net-based fandoms (and there are some that are more net- than zine-based) follow these same assumptions. Stories posted there often begin with a rating: f/f (Janeway/Kess) heavy B/D. Has anyone else noticed any patterns? Is the term slash used and does it mean what we use it to mean?

M Fae eats her words: Go back to the last issue of SBF and you will find a mailing comment from M. Fae about how she hated Due South and couldn't possibly ever stand to watch it, read fiction in it or — heaven forbid — write it. Famous last words. She has been forcibly converted by [M] and [L] and has taken to reading bad net fiction and sending off for every zine available. 1 fully expect her to be writing fiction on the sly. In fact, I expect that's what she's been doing instead of her trib.

My, my, where have the last three months gone? Seems like only yesterday it was Escapade time and now Media West is almost upon us. Wish I were going. However, may I take this opportunity to say that I thought this year's Escapade was one of the best. Escapade is never going to be famous for its zines, but oh the panels it holds. Personal favorites this year were the series of seminars on fandom past, present, and future. I can hardly wait to see what next year brings.

Now that FK is just about gone, my feeling — strange as this may be — is so what? It had its moments, it had some lovely, dark glimmerings, it had potential, and it never lived up to it. There were a few exceptional episodes and there was some drek. How I wish the series could have followed the Sandbaggers, Blake's 7, or even Babylon 5 model. We could have started with Nick's quest for humanity, seen his progress, his back-slidings, learned about the darkness he must carry around inside himself, and finally we could have watched him self-destruct. Yeah, a nice dark Sandbaggers ending would have been the highlight of the series. But why should 1 expect something really interesting from standard series T.V.

Babylon 5. I've come to the conclusion that there's never been another series that gripped me as strongly, that aroused such an intense response in me, that preoccupied me quite as much as B5. And to think that JMS says he's not sure he'll have anything more he'll want to write about for television after the series ends. Ends? Aaahhh. And as for slash possibilities. I was wondering about Garibaldi and Marcus. They seem to be very antagonistic towards each other. That's the first step on the road to slash pairdom, don't you think?

I figure if I go public with this often enough, then I'll have to do it. I'm absolutely hooked on Highlander, particularly on the slash potential between Duncan MacLeod and Methos. Well, I think in order to satisfy my cravings I'm going to have to do a zine. It won't be quite the usual thing that Oblique generally does. For one thing, although M. Fae has been coerced into writing a story (after a number of other things get done), it's really much more my project than hers. But what to call it? I'm offering a free zine (when it's finished) to anyone who comes up with a title that I like and use. Then again, I could stick with the only one that appeals so far: Immortal Beloveds (or perhaps Immortals Beloved). This stems from the stipulation that each story focus on a slash relationship between two immortals, not an immortal and a mortal. (I'm also trying to avoid Richie stories.) So, any suggestions?

How funny you should think that Starsky and Hutch has aged well. [K] and I sat down to watch eps. When they started reshowing them here, could do was turn to each other groan: uggggghhhh, this is bad, much worse than we remembered. And yea, we hadn't watched it since it was originally broadcast -- but we remembered amazing amounts of it. I think it's another example of where I often prefer the fanfic to the actual show (and that's certainly not true for every fandom).

That visuals are an important criterion in developing a slash fandom. I think they are not just important, but rather crucial. Take them away and slash isn't quite...slash — at least for me. (I shouldn't generalize here.) I once read a Darcy/Wickham story (written and then given to me midway between the early '80s BBC production and the 1995 version) that as far as I could tell was solely dependent on the literary version/source. It didn't feel like slash to me. I've also published several stories based on literary sources that, looking back on them, are not that satisfying in a slash-punch-to-the-gut sort of way. M. Fae claims that her Holmes/Watson pieces rely only on Conan Doyle. That may be what she writes, but they work for me because of the Granada TV images. I rather suspect that what I'm doing here is ([B], are you listening) reassessing my personal view of what constitutes slash. (Not that we're ever going to agree on that one.) I've said in print before that I viewed slash as a wide continuum or maybe a bell curve, the middle containing the core of slash, what the majority agree really is slash. As move further from the center you start reaching points when different people say, well this isn't slash anymore. At one extreme you perhaps move towards what more people would regard as gay porn.

Some Topics Discussed in "Untitled by N F-G"

Excerpts from ""Untitled by N F-G""

While I was in the USENET, I stumbled across several B5 email lists! According to the B5 FAQ file, where I found these lists, the lists were set up so that B5 fans would have a place to play yet at the same time JMS would be protected from exposure to the subjects discussed herein. There are lists devoted to B5 fanfic (gen) and speculation about future episodes. There's even an email list (adult) devoted to stories about Sheriden/Delenn.

Re: Geordie [sic] as overbearing snot. In the beginning the interplay between him and the android Data was rather sweet. But as time passed, Geordie developed some unfortunate habits. When he was with Data, he knew all the answers. Just once I wished Geordie would shut up and let Data ramble for a change. When some important thingie broken down, Geordie's feeling was of course Data will fix this—so much so that when Data has a nightmare it's to the effect of Geordie saying, "C'mon Data. Fix it! It'll be fun!" A re-occurring guest character was Lt. Barclay (Dwight Schultz, the actor who did "Howlin' Mad Murdock" on the A-Team). When Chief Engineer Geordie finds out what a klutz Barclay is, he tries get him transferred off the ENTERPRISE! Now I realize that STAR TREKs' authoritarian structure requires that The Captain (or other higher-ranking officer) Is Always Right — you have to have a "bad boy" who makes mistakes so that the Captain (or other higher-ranking officer) can show him The Error Of His Ways. But, it is a hard thing to watch Geordie do these dumb, hurtful things, especially when the actor playing this part is someone as talented and compassionate as LeVar Burton. The problem with Geordie is not the actor but with everything else namely, the aforementioned authoritarian structure of the show.

Yes, m'dear, you're not the only one who saw the slash underpennings in the miniseries, JOSEPH. I don't know why it is is but Ben Kinsley looks smashing in that ancient Egyptian eye liner and mascara!!) I must say that the slash ramifications of the slave/master joke went right over my head.

I'm breathless with anticipation that Kinsley's is coming back to TNT though I'm crushed to say that it is as the mere Hebrew Patriarch Moses instead of as the fashion plate of the Two Kingdoms, Potiphar. *Sniff* (I know this because adverts for this movie with his name headlined on it (I wish I could say "likeness" but the artwork is that poor) are plastered on the sides of MTA buses (LA's mass transit) as they whiz past.)

According to my Bible, the only man who got close to Moses was a fellow by the name of Aaron, but seeing as, he is Moses' brother, Bibical incest might be a bit much, even here in SBF.

I fell for David Bruce Banner/The Hulk in a big way. Part of the fun of watching this show (perverted me) was pretending that David's guilty secret was that he was Gay. (Ignore that gal hanging on his arm; that's just a cover...).

Then there was that two-parter that broke my heart though actually I must confess, I don't know if I remember scenes from it or from two entirely different episodes. The first scene I remember is of a woman (young and pretty of course) writing on the blackboard while giving a lecture. Her presentation was about How The Human Mind Works. It was something along the line of Each Of Us Is Made Up Of Two Sides, forever at war with ourselves (It's a theory very close to mine — but I'll leave that for another day...)

Professor/Doctor MarySue was played by Mariette Hartley the same actress who used to do those Kodak commercials with James Gardner [sic] and who guest-starred in the Classic Trek episode, ALL OUR YESTERDAYS as Mr. Spock's love-her-then-leave-her heroine, Zarabeth.

Looking back, it's hard to describe why this scene affected me so deeply. At the time I was watching it, I became aware that what the show was telling me was that David Banner's dream of reintegrating his two halves was hopeless. Secondly, in the scene, as I remember it, there was the knowledge that finding anyone who would understand his dual nature, his "dark side" as well as his "light side" was hopeless.

And all this emotional onslaught was happening at about the same time David realized that MarySue, the instructor diagramming the Good/Bad Theory of Man "pop psychology" on the blackboard, did understand and it was this, plus some foolishness about her wanting to find a "cure." (Why must television obsess with "curing" a condition instead of teaching that person how to live fully within the limitations that condition imposes?)

So with all this going for her, and her physical appearance (Well, she was Mariette Hartley) she had no choice but to be the Great True Love of David Bruce Banner's life (insert mild sarcasm here) and... succumb to Fatal Heroine Disease (she croaked in a hurricane or was it a fatal brain seizure and the hurricane prevented her from calling 911? Who remembers?) All this after being married just long enough for her to brush the rice kernels off her wedding dress. Needless to say, when she died in the hurricane, (Why can't it be a nice boring hit and run?) I was crushed. Seriously. I was crying, the whole nine yards.

Slash-wise, I noticed that 'round here DUE SOUTH seems to be taking off like a bullet.

[...]

I'm hooked! I'm hooked! Both Benny and Vinnie [sic] are so cute! It's not everyday when I like both side of a slash couple! Not since MIAMI VICE have I felt this way! Now I'm watching the show, reading the zines, watching the video tapes...

Some Topics Discussed in "When Correctly Viewed"

  • discussion and description of Japanese narrative paintings of the 15th-17th centuries that show animals imitating human beings
  • is darkfic (reading and writing it) bad for people?
  • lack of strong female characters in fan fiction
  • Niccolo vs. Lymon
  • From Eroica with Love, the new canon, Western fans and lack of access to full translations
  • differences between men and women and their approach to fiction
  • more on Nero Wolfe and his relationships
  • slash as Mary Sue
  • slash and other intimacies between Blake's 7 characters
  • Due South fic is on the rise
  • a reprint of the article, The Boob Tube, and Then Some

Excerpts from "When Correctly Viewed"

The songs in How Much for Just the Planet are to original tunes, though the author did say that if he had had any idea how many people were going to ask him that question, he would have used known tunes instead.

Alas, my beloved GEnie is now nearly defunct, at least the interesting parts. The company was sold to new owners who promptly raised the rates, and in a very sneaky, underhanded way, too. Many of the more interesting denizens have departed. Happily, one of my favorite topics has been reconstructed as a private mailing list, so I'm enjoying that.

Oh, do please write the Avon/Blake/original female story! It sounds wonderfully hot. Make her an alien if you like; that might even help physiologically, since I for one have my doubts about how many human females could really accommodate two males at once and enjoy it. (I confess, it's always been a hot fantasy of mine; but it's one that I think I'd just as soon leave in the realm of fantasy, since I suspect that the reality would be uncomfortable at best.) If you're worried about being accused of committing Mary Sue, you could put the story under a deep-cover pseud and publish it in someone else's zine. Just a thought.

I've resisted Due South fandom, as well as the others noted below; but I've noticed that it seems to be spreading rapidly, and at this rate there should be some excellent writers doing it soon, if not already. In fact I have an incomplete DS slash story in my files, from a private mailing list; I haven't read it yet, but the writer is one I like a lot. I just wish she'd get back to B7! :)

I've managed so far to avoid getting hooked on Forever Knight or Highlander or even B5, so I feel as if I'm kind of running out of things to talk to people about. OTOH, if past history holds, the present more-or-less monogamous obsession has another half-decade to go. Sometime early in the next century, I'll get bored with B7 and start looking for something new.

I agree with you that in the canonical B7 universe, probably the only sex that went on most of the time was solitary (with just a few obvious exceptions. Like Vila and Kerril on Keezarn or Tarrant and Servalan on Virn). That's why the only smut story I've ever read that I can really see as part of the canonical universe is Tashery's "Private Amusements." It may also be why, as a B7 fan, I'm suspicious of the argument that many slash fans make, namely that the slashy elements really are in the aired shows. I can see how it might look that way to fans of a buddy-pair show, but what I see in B7 is a lot of unspecified areas that can be filled in as one pleases, slash or straight or whatever. (Maybe Avon only truly loves Orac. Maybe Vila likes sheep when he can get them. Who knows?)

I wonder what the actual distribution is of fans who identify with the hurt one in an h/c story, versus fans who identify with the comforter? Maybe I should inquire on Space City.

About the theory that I had heard from an anti-slash fan, to the effect that all slash is a kind of Mary Sue: interestingly enough, I now know of one newly-converted slash fan who happily admits that that is exactly what is going on with her! She identifies strongly with one side of her favorite slash pair. She had lusted after the other half of the pairing for a long time anyway, and one day it just occurred to her that if she could make the leap of the imagination to identify not only with a female partner for her BSO, but with a male one as well, then it would be that many more ways to enjoy the body of the Beloved. And since there was another male character that she'd always liked and identified with anyway, it turned out not to be very difficult at all.

I don't know whether you read Locus, but the write ups of the WorldCon in the November 1995 issue included an amusing quote from an article in the September 2 issue of The Economist, based in turn on Delany's GoH speech: "In some ways, a science-fiction convention resembles a gay-pride march. It provides an opportunity to take public delight in a source of pleasure that is often mocked or despised — and to celebrate with others of like disposition, and to wear silly costumes if you so desire."

Yes, I remember the odd questions from clueless men at that last WorldCon slash panel. There was one in particular that I thought kind of summed up the classic difference between the genders with regard to fictional sex: the fellow who kept saying, "What about sex in zero gravity?" He seemed fascinated by the inherent wonderfulness of this idea, but what the various women wanted to know was, "Well, who's doing it with who, and why are they in zero gravity in the first place?" He didn't seem to care about any of the specifics, and [was] puzzled that the women weren't more appreciative of the basic mechanical idea. Typical, I thought.

Re: Eroica, most people who've read the new story do seem to feel that it is at least a bit inferior to the classic ones. But it sounds as if your problem goes even beyond that. I suppose that in a way, being an Eroica fan without access to full translations of what already exists must be rather like being a fan of an ongoing TV series, as opposed to a canceled one. You just never know when the nifty background you've been making up will be undone by some new revelation in the "canon." I don't know what the solution is.

I was very taken with your theory that one reason for the lack of strong female characters in fan fiction is the desire to focus on the male protagonist, and the fact that a woman of character would most likely walk out on him, and therefore out of his story, when he misbehaved (as I'm sure Avon, for one, would do). Of course, one might get around that problem by contriving ways for them to be stuck with each other. On a spaceship together with a galactic empire after both their asses is one possibility!

About holodeck sex: you remarked on the difference between playing with a fiction, and playing with another person, and commented on the importance of motivation. In a way this ties in to a debate I've been observing in another apa, between someone who thinks that dark fanfic (e.g. most, though not all, of Oblaque — she did like "Glass House" a lot) is inherently bad for the soul, and someone who maintains that this is just not so. On the whole I incline to the latter view, but I do have occasional qualms about my tastes.

Some Topics Discussed in "To Be Announced by T H"

  • planning a trip from the UK to Alberta, Canada as she is a big Due South fan
  • "That bolt of lightning effect [of a new fandom love] is quite something when it hits. I'd never been hit with it before but I've a new understanding of why some fans go so overboard for."
  • Babylon 5
  • using smutty innuendos at rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5
  • figure skating
  • Morse/Lewis
  • writing in a fandom one isn't familiar with

Excerpts from "To Be Announced by T H"

I've got another issue of Pack Mates out. When I'm Calling You 3 is due, and Cry Wolf is at the printers. I know that there are several American Due South zines due and another from Australia. Due South slash seems to have struck a nerve.

It's usually the 'dark' one I go for in slash pairs so in that way Sheridan made no impact at all to start with. It was that white shirt! I didn't know I had a thing for superbly lit men wearing white shirts and being crucified on a metal frame but obviously I do have that button! It did get fun on the B5 list for a while. It still amazes me just how much we got away with. All that smut and sexual innuendo being posted to the list and I don't know of any backlash of any sort.

How could I write Morse/Lewis without actually seeing it? Well, Ann is a friend who is very into slash and detective shows - just like the rest of us. Anyway, she turned up one day going on and on about Morse/Lewis. That bolt-of-lightning I was talking about above, well she'd had that bolt about M/L and didn't shut up for about 6 months. She just kept on and on and on. She wrote a story, I edited it for her and suggested changes, so to get her own back she also kept on at me to write something for the zine she wanted to do. I ended up doing two short stories for her. I don't think I got the Morse, Lewis characters very well and it was very derivative stuff. A basic dinner together, hot sex, turns out to be a dream plotline. The second story turned the dream into reality - (I can't remember what I called the first one, second one was 'After the Dinner' - both appeared in Chasing Rain (by Willow). To get back to the original question though, as portrayed in the series I don't see a M/L relationship. Lewis is portrayed as being happily married so every story I've seen has to go through the 'get rid of the wife' scenario. Morse is portrayed as a grumpy, moody, bachelor who thinks of Lewis as 'his' detective so from that side, maybe. Somehow I just don't see it though. I tend not to count those stories as they really wrote themselves. I hadn't planned them, nor the plots. It wouldn't surprise me to find that I've copied someone else's plot.

References

  1. ^ Weasleycest had yet to occur...
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