Women in Slash (2001 essay)

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Title: Women in Slash (spelled "Woman in Slash" on the article, "Women in Slash" on the table of contents)
Creator: Mistress Valkyrie
Date(s): October 2001
Medium: online
Fandom: Anime, Video Games, Yaoi
Topic:
External Links: online here, Archived version
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Women in Slash is an essay posted to Citizens Against Bad Slash by guest writer Mistress Valkyrie.

The author's introduction: "Before I start, I just want to state that I am speaking mostly from the perspective of anime and video game related slash (or yaoi) because they are the ones that seem to suffer from this syndrome."

Excerpts

One of the main culprits of this problems seem to be Final Fantasy 8 stories. I'll be the first to admit, Rinoa is a pointless character. But although character bashing could be rather amusing at times, after awhile it can get rather acrid( writers note: please feel free to insert a different term here. When I type, sometimes words fall out that don't make sense) And what of Quistis or the hyper Selphie? To me Quistis seems the type that would except the relationship between the two often slashed characters of Squall and Seifer. And although some writers would show that, she never seems to get any development. It would be nice to see her get into a relationship of her own at some point. This is slash fiction, but when written well, the hetero couples can be just as sweet.

I am not saying that every writer does this. Some of us couldn't care less about the roles of the females in the stories. In fact it seems as if some of the male characters are written as females in themselves (I believe there is an essay on girly men). But as a female myself, I wonder whether or not there is a female on the show that can relate to me. It would make me smile to see a character like Natsuti from Samurai Troopers say, "You know Ryo and Shin DO seemly rather friendly around each other lately." Thankfully, there are some writers who write the females into the story rather well. I mean, you never know when a gal might be a closet fangirl. As I look back on this, I begin to wonder how the males are treated in fem slash, or yuri. I have read a few, but already there seems to be an absence of the males or the males are just there as a spectator to watch the women go down on each other. But as cliche and trite as this may sound, "That, my friends, is another story."