Help! My slash goggles are stuck!

[melannen]

(Meta for Notcapade)
(And many, many thanks to siegeofangels and stellar_dust for readover and reassurance that I am not completely mad. I have learned why people rarely get meta betas: because they are smarter than you are, and won't stop thinking long enough to let you post!)


I've been thinking about the feminist concept of a "male gaze" (through girl-wonder) and about slash (through metafandom), and one day (almost exactly a month ago) the two collided in my head, and I realized that to me, slash is all about the male gaze. Or rather, as siegeofangels put it, it's about inverting the male gaze - about co-opting it for ourselves.

Pt 1: Slash and the inverted male gaze
The "male gaze" is a concept that comes out of feminist media theory. Not having ever formally studied either feminism or the media, I came to the idea mostly through fandom - through online comics fandom specifically, where it's an *extremely* self-evident and relevant idea. It's a kind of sticky concept, but for the purposes of this discussion let's define it as something along the lines of "the assumption that the most important members of any audience are straight males." As a result, everything that we see in the media is first passed through the filter of "would this be attractive to that hypothetical straight male?"

It came out of film theory, I believe, talking about where the camera points and how we choose what is shown on screen, but it's very easily extensible to real life: everyone who performs a female character on screen is expected to think, first, about what the straight male wants - well, so is everyone who performs a female identity in *real life*. In fact, once I started thinking along those pathways, I've had trouble turning it off. How much of what we see in the images around us, in advertising, books, movies, celebrities, fashion - is based on what we think that stereotyped default straight male wants? And as a result, how much do women have to always act in the awareness of their own sexual desirability, and the percieved importance of that desirability?

I first starting seriously thinking about slash in terms of this concept as the result of a post by strongplacebo that was linked on metafandom a while back; she writes about an experience she had wherein she saw a pliable young man bending over a counter, and her first thought was how sexy that would be if he were in slash - not how sexy *she* thought he was, but how closely that scene matched her idea, as a slash writer, of what a desirable young man should be. She saw it this way: "I was looking at him as a gay man might look at him. Clearly, this is a sign that I spend too much time inside a gay man's head trying to get his character right." Hence she spoke of 'implied gay male gaze', as congruent with the feminist concept of the 'implied male gaze'.

Frankly, I was immediately inclined to disagree here, because I'm over-sensitive to the idea that, as slashers, we are somehow co-opting the prerogative of gay males. How does she know what a hypothetical gay male likes? She only knows what *slashers* like, right?

At the same time, though, I've had this experience myself. These days, on TV or in RL, I'm just as likely to look at a male and think "he'd play really well in slash" (or even "I want to see him in leather pants! As a rentboy! Up against the wall!", or, in days of yore, "He's so bishie!") than I am to think he's attractive through the lens of my *own* sexuality, which skews somewhat different. And it's not just finding new types attractive - it's also about thinking about men in terms of cocksucking lips and wanting them on their knees; and in terms of 'pretty' and 'graceful' and 'totally asking for it' instead of the ways we've been trained to see men since childhood. I don't think this is an entirely unique experience, either - strongplacebo got plenty of agreement. And for another random voice, cathexys just linked to a four-year-old comment by aerye in which she says "I honestly don't think I will ever have sex with a man again but my sexuality now involves this thing, this production of sexual narrative by women that often focuses on men as sexual objects. Something I'm still trying to think through." Which is much less vivid in imagery, but I think likely describes a similar experience of finding a change in the way desirability is percieved - a shift in perspective from an overlaid default hetero male gaze to a default of ... something else. Is this fairly widespread? I'll admit I've never seen a survey (yet!)

It's not that there wasn't already an idea out there of the sort of ways I should see men as sexy. It just doesn't have much in common with the way I learned from reading fic, and slashy fic in particular; it had to do with men's own idea of themselves, and of who ought to deserve women. This new way of looking sees male as the *recipient* of desire - says "now you just stand there and look sexy for me - no, show a little more skin" - says "Who you are as a person is defined by who you're available to have sex with" - strips away the man's assumed initiative in sexual affairs.

We even kind of have a name for it - I think this inverted way of looking at is similar (though not completely congruent, and much less relationship-focused) with what we call 'slash goggles'. It's *not* the 'gay man's gaze' though - at least, I don't think so; from my occasional forays into what gay men produce in the spaces they control, the output is somewhat different, though in places it shares a lot with slash. Although I find it interesting that in order to create for ourselves a space where men face the same desiring gaze as women do, many of us have chosen to co-opt, to some extent, that gay man's gaze - through slash.

I'd love to call this way of seeing "woman's gaze". I'd love to live in a world where I could, and where woman's gaze was as default as man's. But the fact that we still so often have to borrow a man's gaze in order to see this way - well, says a lot about the strides that feminism still needs to take. Instead, I'm going to call it "slasher's gaze". Because I think, in a real way, through the female-controlled space we've created in slash, that's how we've found that way of looking at men -- with the assumption that *we* (as slashers) are the important ones, *we* are the ones who are doing the looking, *our* gaze has power and *our* desire is what's important, and the *men* are the ones who ought to worry about what we're thinking.

I think that slasher's gaze is a fundamental element of what I think of as the "slash aesthetic". Yes, I'm one of those weird people who believes in a slash aesthetic, and I define myself as a slasher because I like that aesthetic even if I tend to read and write at least as much other stuff as I do m/m. A few years ago, if you'd asked me what that entailed, I would have said "I know it when I see it!" Because it's more than who's having sex with who - there are m/m stories that don't have that feel to me, and f/m and f/f and gen stories that do (Note: I'm not saying that m/m stories that don't have that aesthetic to me aren't "real slash", or making any quality judgements; I'm just saying that they're different, in a noticeable way, and that when we talk about slash as a sexual identity or as a kink or as a culture we often aren't talking about those stories.) I think, for me, what defines the slash aesthetic is the slash gaze. In a story that reads as 'slashy' to me, men are desired and displayed in more-or-less the same way that women are in most of the rest of our culture. It doesn't really have anything to do with the way the writer might see the world, or whether she has ever used that 'slasher's gaze' in a real-life situation - but within the slashy story itself, men view themselves as people who are looked at, rather than as the ones who do the looking.

I think this was pointed up to me, first, years ago when the Regenderizer first made the rounds. It's a nifty internet widget that lets you change pronouns and proper names in a text in order to either reverse or flatten gender markers. What I noticed, though, in running various bits of random text through it (and by that I mean not just stories, but messageboard posts and nonfiction articles) was not "Wow, this is a really new way of looking at the world!" but "Wow, this makes the whole internet read like a slashfic!" By removing the gender markers that make it simple to define "okay, he's the one who desires, and she's the one who is desired" - turning it into "Okay, sie's the one who desires, and sie's the one who is desired" - slasher's gaze and male gaze become indistinguishable.

And, okay, it's very easy to slip from this idea into that old canard "slash feminizes male characters!" Which is hard, of course, to talk about without somehow defining "feminize" - and in some ways and in some places, it could be seen as feminizing, as making a man take a woman's part. But a good slash fic does *not* do this by taking its players out of character or forcing them into constricted roles (though, of course, some of them do that as well) - rather, it takes the characters we always have known, and puts them in a situation where they're forced to see and react to the world in some of the same ways that women are forced to react - ways that have less to do with what gender is inherently and more to do with what culture has made of it.

Sure, genderswitch often does this most obviously, but there's an element of it in nearly every slash story. In slash men find themselves in the position of being *desired* in the way that women are usually assumed to be desired - that is to say, by a man. Which is to say, someone powerful, someone *important*, someone who *matters*. Someone who could really screw things up for you on a number of levels if you handle this wrong, because society assumes he's in the right. Someone who's accustomed to being in charge, especially in sexual contexts. And suddenly - because of the mere existence of the fact that "the male gaze" can be turned back on *men* - something fundamental in the feel of the world changes. Suddenly the man who leans over the counter has to be concious of that strip of skin that's showing under his t-shirt, and the way his jeans fit, because someone could be seeing that, and wanting him - someone who is free to act on that desire. Maybe beyond his ability to stop them, if he's not careful. And the male character can no longer afford to overlook that fact.

None of this is entirely a new idea - there's *nothing* new under the heading of "why we slash" - but it's a way of organizing the idea that hasn't let go of me since the first time I found it. It touches on a lot of fundamental slash issues - many of which are brought up in the links in cathexys's excellent flashback post on slash as queer and/or feminist - and many of them say more or less the same thing, and well enough that I *almost* managed to talk myself out of writing this - but for me, at least, organizing it under the principle of a slasher's gaze brings everything together in an interesting new way. Slash as freed female desire, as tranference to unmarked bodies, as female-only space, feminist and queer subversion both - I think, for me, it all comes down to: we have created a space where the default male gaze is inverted, and turned on men. And we're the people looking.

Pt 2. Applying the Slasher's Gaze to Fantexts

I want to say here, very explicitly, in the context of re-reading all those old meta posts, that by "created a space" I mean a *fictional* space - it's easy to go from talking about what slash is to talking about the people who write and read it and the communities they've formed, and the values of those communities, and that is a fruitful place for discussion to go own its own. But by linking the concept of slasher's gaze back to the idea of a slash aesthetic, I'm trying to establish something that's intrinsic to slash regardless of the community around us, or if we're even aware that there are other women looking with us. Something that we see in a text and grab hold of for dear life, and *that's* what makes us slashers.

A slash gaze is something inherent to the way a story is shaped that will color it regardless of wider context, if it's there - something that called out to me, sitting alone in my room with no fandom contacts, the minute I opened that googled link to the Draco Trilogy. Or even years and years before that, reading one of Marshak&Culbreath's Star Trek stories with no idea what I'd stumbled on but knowing it was something new and something strange and maybe dangerous and oh, I wanted more. Neither of those examples are even m/m, mind, but they read as 'slashy' almost universally, I think, because the male characters are kept so aware of their own forced passivity, and potential desirability, and the ways in which that limits them. But the vast majority of slashy fantexts are explicitly m/m, I think, because borrowing and reworking that 'gay man's gaze', and all the power and freedom of action and assumptions that comes with the 'male' part, is the simplest way to find the slasher's gaze that looks at men from a position of power, and makes them react to the fact that it's looking.

Even in the least conscious, smarmiest old WNGWJLEO stories, where all repercussions in the wider world are cut out of the central pairing, that slasher's gaze is still there in the way that the central friendship becomes eroticized, because the characters are forced to confront (explicitly or not) the way in which the other person's sexual desire for them has shaped their friendship; they're forced to look back and analyze their own behavior, and the other party's reactions to it, seeing themselves not as a person in a friendship, but as passive vessel for sexual desire. Which is something most women have to do, with some friendship, sooner or later (usually sooner) in their lives.

And then you get more modern stories like Torchwood where that erotic possibility is always there and all slash does is pull it more to the foreground. And you get crossgen, where the power differential is played up with age as the factor in sexual power rather than gender. And you get het stories that have the slashy feel anyway because the female character knows how to put the same power behind her desire that a man does and doesn't hesitate to do so. And f/f stories, which often work by sidelining the male gaze entirely and putting all the power into woman's desire, assigning the supposed 'male gaze' explicitly to a woman looking at a woman - and the opposite sort of slash story, which sidelines the heterosexual male gaze by removing all female sexuality from within the story and leaving us only with the slasher's gaze as a result.

And I think that this idea of inverting the male gaze might also apply to why certain canon texts gather a huge slash following when others don't. A slashy fandom seems be one where the slasher's gaze has a way *in* - where there's something about the way the canon is set up that makes it friendlier to the idea of men being looked at by someone who actively and aggressively desires. That doesn't necessarily mean a canon with strong female characters or even one that's open to the possibility of gay; more often, it means canon that's already got the idea built in that no, it's not safe to walk outside alone at night just because you're a man. Because there's something out there that's watching, and it might get you if you do.

Am I saying, then, that all fangirls secretly want to be the Celine demon? Well. Um. Sometimes? But no, not really - it's simply that the existence of this outsider POV that does not respect the security that comes with mere maleness gives us the first crack that we can use to pry our way in and overturn all of those assumptions. Sometimes it's a predatory force that explicitly wants to take and use men's bodies (see: Vampires, Wraith, demons, Goa'uld, Voldemort, Black Oil, Quickenings, the One Ring); sometimes it's an SF milieu where traditional gender roles are supposedly erased, and the degree to which they are gives us our leg in, and the degree to which they *aren't* gives us the need for slash (see: Star Trek, Phantom Menace, and why the heck is Mal so upset by Inara anyway?), which is probably much of the reason why sf/paranormal settings tend to be so dominant in slash.

Even the other main category of large slash fandoms, law enforcement shows - the ones that gather the big slash fandoms seem to be the ones where the people outside the law are presented as this subversive society that doesn't accept normal rules of behavior, and are therefore a constant threat to all of our cultural underpinnings, rather than as just criminals (see: THRUSH, um. Admittedly this is my weakest point because I've never closely followed any of these fandoms. Do Jim and Blair do anything but snuggle? And I know nothing about the CSIs except that they don't have Angel in them...) And sometimes all you need to get in is one viewpoint character who sees the world in a way that's sufficiently bent to be conducive to inverting that default gaze (see: Captain Jack Sparrow, Dorian red Gloria, Ben Fraser, anyone with the surname Wayne or Luthor.) Or there are the RPS fandoms, where the way in which celebrity focuses on bodies that are looked at provides the pathway for slashers to look at them too.

It seems like the more obvious, numerous, and fundamental those pathways in are, the faster and larger the slash fandom grows - whereas you have shows which by any rights (emo-porn, setting, gaygaygay male friendships, quality of writing, hot guys in leather, whatever) ought to have massive slash fandoms but never really quite made it over the threshhold - and in many cases, I think, it's because the het male perspective is simply so entrenched, and pervasive, in the wordview of those canon that there's no friendly way in for a slasher's gaze. Those shows might have a small, dedicated fandom, or a medium-sized not-so-dedicated one, based simply on how good they are or how much the two hot guys love each other, but they never really seem to take off into fannish conciousness the way it will happen with a show that has that outsider's gaze built in to blaze the trail.

Whew! Long essay. And I made it all the way to the end without ever using the terms 'patriarchy', 'privilege', 'subversion' or 'objectification'! Go me. There's a lot in there and a *lot* of places I could take it from there - I keep coming up with ways to answer old fannish questions in terms of this theory, which if I were an astrophycist at least would be a point in my favor. And more importantly, maybe, I need to think some more about the ethical implications of using, and glorifying, that particular way of seeing.

But I've been unable to stop thinking about things in terms of slasher's gaze ever since I first found it - which is probably part of the reason I've been quiet on the meta front; I was waiting for a way to talk about what I've been thinking effectively, and to figure out whether it works at all outside my own head. I'm not entirely sure I've succeeded, but I'm desperate for any sort of answer back from the void on this. So, please, feedback, discuss, tell me I'm off my rocker, tell me somebody else came up with all this ten years ago! Or just go off and ponder it all in your hearts for awhile, like I did. I'm just tired of not having anyone else who knows what I'm talking about.

And that's really what fandom's for, after all.

Right?

3/10, ETA: Okay, two weeks later, I think I'm finally caught up on comments here - I'll do my best to be better to keep up with new ones coming in. I'm really sorry it took so long. I have issues, which is neither an apology or an excuse, but at least believe me it wasn't personal. (Except with stellar_dust. That was totally personal, that was :P)

Comments

[siegeofangels.livejournal.com]

1. STILL AWESOME AND SENSE-MAKING. As I was reading this I was going, "Yes! I can think of so many examples off the top of my head!" like:

- astolat's Loves Me Not (http://www.intimations.org/fanfic/stargate/Loves%20Me%20Not.html), where one of the main turning points in the story is Rodney seeing John *looking at him*

- Anatomically Correct (http://www.trickster.org/speranza/Anatomic.html) by cesperanza, Fraser as the recipient of the male gaze, and also Interrogation (http://www.trickster.org/speranza/Interrogation.html), which taken together are extra cool, because they invert the gaze and also keeps the power in Fraser's corner because he's the one that chooses what to do about it.

- plus a lot of other dS stories where Ray is talking about how attractive *other people* (and not just himself) find Fraser.

- and then all of the stories in genres that explicitly involve watching/owning, the slavery/rentboy/voyeurism stuff.

2. As far as slash factor, you mention that one can be the existence of bad guys who want to take/use men's bodies, and I TOTALLY JUST REALIZED that there are good guys who do this too, namely military/law enforcement. Because John Sheppard is required by someone else to look and dress a certain way, to go where they tell him to go, to follow orders, to be conscious that he will *always be viewed* as a representative of the USAF/US/Earth/Atlantis. So he's already in a position that makes him the recipient of the male gaze.

Same thing with Benton Fraser, part of whose job, iirc, is to *stand outside the Canadian Consulate and look nice*.

Ray Kowalski has the cop thing on top of the undercover thing, where he's again *explicitly playing a part*.

So I think that that situation--characters in the military or law enforcement or . . . prison, maybe. Any situation with uniforms, basically--is going to be inherently slashy or more *easily* slashed, because the characters are already the objects of the gaze.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

1. Of course, now I'm reading a bunch of slash stories where it *doesn't* show up so obviously! But yes, those are very good examples.

I just stumbled on a classically wondeful amnesia fic, and, wow, yes. That's all about building a new idea of yourself based on how other people react to you, isn't it? And when the only other person around is your OTP, you're going to rebuild yourself around being desired...

But then at the same time, I have seen some slash fics where it's ... at best, implied. (Of course I'm currently on an Eroica kick, and that's not exactly your typical slash fandom, but still.) Where the POV is so tightly focused on the character realizing what *he* wants, and the being wanted is subtextual at best... on the other hand, though, even the 'what he wants' in the first-time scene is often written as strength, equality, *power* in a partner, so that reversal is still there, in a different way.

2. I think this is really insightful, and true. But I think that there's more to it than mere presence of uniforms, because there are plenty of shows about men in uniform that don't - so much - draw the slash following. It's the ways in which those uniforms are important. Fraser, yes, and Kowalski, yes, because they more or less explicity *use* the uniform (or undercover, whatever), the duty, so that people don't look at past it at *them*, and it's encouraged by their superiors in a way that really reinforces that. (NOt that I've actually, um, seen and dS or anything.)

Sheppard is his own thing. Sheppard is basically a treatise on the inverted male gaze *all by himself*. He's just ... so totally concious of being looked at, while at the same time so totally passive with it. In the canon he is also a lot less *competent* at it - and at realizing exactly what messages he's sending - than he often is in fic, but that 'John-you-are-not-the-sexetary' thing is still so fundamental to his character. Possibly because it's hard for most women to imagine being as clumsy as he is at negotiating it? It's just ... John! Oh you and your issues! And then you add in Rodney's equal-but-opposite self-image issues and it's the slashiest pairing ever *despite* comparatively little onscreen schmoop.

Anyway. Um. Enough about John. I think .. maybe there are shows where there are men who just happen to carry badges and/or wear uniforms, and then you have shows where the uniforms are vitally important to the way they ... survive walking out the door in the morning. Does that make sense? Maybe the partners thing is part of this, too, the us-against-the-world thing which is so slashy and which requires that the world is out to get you...

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

more often, it means canon that's already got the idea built in that no, it's not safe to walk outside alone at night just because you're a man. Because there's something out there that's watching, and it might get you if you do.

I'm pretty sure I'm attracted to those fandoms because the potential for action/violence/hurt-comfort/seeing-people-get-beat-up-real-good is so much higher, but I also think there might be something to your theory that placing male characters in peril/making them vulnerable to some outside threat makes it easier for viewers to see them as sexual objects. I'm making this up as I go along here, but putting the male lead in physical danger might encourage female viewer identification (the way having the "last girl" in a slasher flick fight back against the monster apparently encourages male identification), which might make it easier for fans to transfer that female sense of being a potential sex object onto him.

Whew! Long essay. And I made it all the way to the end without ever using the terms 'patriarchy', 'privilege', 'subversion' or 'objectification'! Go me.

*cheers for melannen* Those are important concepts, I've found that those words have a way of dragging the topic of discussion away from fanfic texts and into the realm of RL politics.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Those are important concepts, I've found that those words have a way of dragging the topic of discussion away from fanfic texts and into the realm of RL politics.

And I'm pretty sure I meant that sentence to have a "but" or "however" in it somewhere.

(comment mostly recycled from the beta!)

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

(Still missing ')'s at the beginning! You forgot them after the link-tags.)


I think you have a pretty valid point with the concept of an inverted male gaze as as a conduit to a shifted worldview (more powerful vantage point?) on the part of slashers. And I think you make very good arguments. (But then, I always find your writing easy to read and persuasive.)

Something that I find really interesting in all this is that there seem to be several different types (degrees, if you will) of slash aesthetic. I'm assuming that your audience at Notcapade pretty much shares your views and perspective. I seem to be somewhat different in my approach, and I'm not really sure ... why, I guess. For one thing, you rattle off all these slash 'ships you like, and the main reason I don't read them is that canonically, they hate each other! Do you see *that* sort of tension as an essential part of your aesthetic? Is the male gaze more easily or satisfyingly inverted, maybe, when the guys are already set into roles wherein they both seek power over the other, and is it easier to subvert that canonical power-play (be it political, or military, or a personal vendetta, or whatever) into a sexual power-play through the slasher's gaze? That actually sounds kinda fucked up, when I put it that way...! Do I really see slash so differently from the mainstream? Is it so odd to see it mostly in existing *friendships*? I don't think so, but ... maybe?

I think of myself as ... a fic-reader who likes slash. The main reasons why I don't define myself as a "slasher" are 1) I've never written any and 2) I don't really participate at all in the fandom beyond the occasional feedback or one-off comment on a meta post, so I don't feel like I'm a part of the community that self-identifies as slashers, and I feel like the label is something that should be at least marginally earned. The fact that I also enjoy gen and het has no bearing. But you seem to have different reasons for not labeling me a slasher, or not primarily a slasher, which seems mostly influenced by the pairings I prefer, and I'm very interested in seeing you analyze that!

In your first draft of the essay, you emphasized a little more clearly than you meant to, I think, a separation between finding a man attractive as a man, and finding him attractive as someone with slash potential. You rephrased it and I got your intent a little better - not seeing them exactly as a woman would, or exactly as a man would, or exactly as a gay man, or exactly as a slasher - but from a position of power, which in our culture and media is represented by the "male gaze." Which I totally get, after thinking about it for awhile, because the guys that I like to slash, I tend to see from ALL of those perspectives, all at the same time. Although, here's an interesting thought: it isn't so much about power, or that they should be afraid of what I'm thinking when I look at them: it's that they shouldn't be afraid to admit they *like* what I'm thinking. Eh? Eh? (*looks down* y hello thar, Stephen!) So in liberating our pretty pretty men, we liberate ourselves? Does that make sense?

Re: (comment mostly recycled from the beta!)

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Okay, first, the enemyslash thing is completely irrelevant here. Some people happen to think that some people flirt by pulling pigtails, and/or get lust confused with anger, and like that dynamic, and that's all, and it's no more relevant in slash than in het except as a preference, except that it might be more intense sometimes because a lot of things get more intense in slash, the buddyslash too, and all the early big 'ship were friends 4ever types. Also don't underestimate my tendency to rattle off whatever list of 'ships I think my audience would be most flummoxed by. :P

I do think there's a real distiction between a person who readily identifies as a slasher and a person who reads and writes slash. You realize I've never actually posted any explicit M/M slash either, right? (except possibly a few humor drabbles.) And I tend to read as much gen as I can get and adore it more. But I still think of myself as a slasher, and I think it does come back to the aesthetic, and how clearly it resonates with us. I don't think it has to with pairings, fundamentally, or shows, fundamentally, but if most of the things you slash in are ones that most of the slash community ignores, it's possibly a sign that you look for slightly different things than the mainstream.

I do think your last line is good! Thinking! But I have read, un, a fair number of slash stories that never make it to step two, 'admit you like it', and they still sometimes read as slashy to me (I try not to pretend that slash is more enlightened than it is.) Of course, the ones that don't aren't very happy stories, so I think the bit about liberating still applies!

(Although Stephen, frankly, has issues, though I don't presume to know what they are. Has he *ever* played a character who wasn't at least ambiguously gay? Maybe he gravitates toward closeted characters as a way of dealing with the fact that he has to hide his wizarding skills.)

Part II!

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

I'm still gonna put my original comments here, though it's not *exactly* relevant, because I think it's an interesting discussion. I think the separation you mentioned, between finding a guy attractive in himself, and finding him attractive only in terms of slash potential, may be less widespread than you think. I find that I'm really only interested in slashing guys that I personally think are pretty damn hot. Which is, I guess, maybe, why the only guys I've ever slashed immediately as soon as I saw them were Alan and Denny, whose chemistry is basically canon. Most guys it'll take me awhile to get to know them before I decide they're hotties, because my "hot guy" goggles *always* include personality .. so it would take more than one or two tender scenes between Jack and the Doctor for me to see them as an epic love affair, especially since over two seasons I already adore Rose. As an example. My slash goggles are .. kind of inextricable from my "hot guy" goggles, at least at this point. This viewpoint might be more widespread among "casual" slashers, or slashers who self-identify nearer the heterosexual end of the spectrum. It might be worth adding a poll to this post, actually! Because I think the results would be really interesting.

Does this mean that the slash I like is just het where both the participants are male (where the guys are feminized, I guess)? I hope not! And I don't *think* so. There's been a lot of metafandoms (that I've mostly skipped over) recently about top vs. bottom and what that implies in terms of femininization, and honestly, I don't see that kind of characterization toward set sexual roles in the fic I like. I like fic that's true to the characters no matter who's doing what to who .. and yes, fic where both the woman *and* the men are strong *and* good-looking. d-: And .. I think that what I like, within the bounds of good story, good characters, and people who are *people* first and *gendered* second ... is influenced *first* by the fact that *I* think they're hot, and only second by the fact that *I* think *they* should think they're hot.

Does that even touch on your point at all? I'm not sure anymore. d-:

But, the part where you say slash dethrones the male myth by making men vulnerable to men in some of the same ways that women are - yes, yes, and also yes. And your points about why some fandoms are larger than others is very relevant to at least Boston Legal, I think. Also *word* on the slasher's space being more important in our *heads* than in the community of slashers.

I do think, though - and I'm sure this has been dissected time and again and again ... and again - that there's a trend in media today towards including the idea of a female gaze, starting to give it camera time, maybe not quite equal, but certainly catching up to the male gaze. At least in the fandoms that I gravitate to. There's tight pants and bare chests and vulnerability, and just *inviting* the female audience to lust. I mean, you've got Mulder as the needy one, Angel and his hot pants, Daniel the intergalactic slut, *every* bloody guy on Battlestar Galactica. It's not quite as empowering as the slasher's gaze you've described, in that the men-slash-characters don't necessarily feel looked at, or do it for the purpose of being looked at (it's more fanservice, really), but I don't think there's any denying it exists.

Re: Part II!

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Okay, here I think you're kind of blurring individual preferences into what I was looking at, which was more the slash gestalt. I don't know any multifandom slasher who doesn't have at least a couple fandoms or OTPs that nobody else gets.

Also I'm not really sure what you're saying here, because you seem to talk yourself out of it by the end of the paragraph. Do you remember?

As to your second paragraph - NO. I think it means you like stories about two people who love each other, and find all the gender role stuff irrelevant, which is pretty much what you end up saying, too. The whole idea here is that slash is /= two people in love, although it can be. Your way is probably healthier overall, and possibly more subversive, too, but I maintain that my way is more sticky and hot.

I do think inviting women to lust is not the same as inviting the slasher's gaze- there's a reason I didn't just call it the women's gaze - because it's perfectly possible for a woman to lust for a man without upsetting the cultural norms at all, particularly if he has invited her to in a properly manly fashion. (On the other hand, if the fanservice becomes - obtrusive enough - like Mulder showing off his speedo for Krycek - it can warp the world enough that a slasher's gaze has to be invented just to explain it. If done more carefully it can also work in the opposite direction, though, I think, by forcing the female gaze into the culturally approved pathways.)

[silver-spotted.livejournal.com]

this is really interesting - I want to give you something really thoughtful in return, but my brain is still pondering everything you have said, and the rammifications, and is essentially still blown away by you :)

one easy thought: I think on Supernatural, the slasher has a way in that is even more direct than the threat of the celine demon - all the people, especially motel-workers, who assume that Sam and Dean are not brothers. It gives slashers a confirmation that these are two good-looking guys checking into a motel in a couple-like way, but also makes the Winchesters aware that they are being looked at *like that*. As Dean questions in Playthings "What'd you mean that we look the type?" They must now be conscious of how they and their actions are percieved, something which has been used/explored in numerous fics.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I think there are factors in SPN other than the demons looking on, but I'm not sure that just the assumed gayness will do it. Because they've never run into that in a situation where it will cause them any danger, or even inconvenience, have they? (And I follow several fandoms that have had at least as much of the 'you guys are gay, right?' stuff, and they don't even *approach* SPN's level of slash-following. (Boston Legal, anyone?) In fact, those throwaway lines (while they do, oh they do, make the fangirls happy) can almost work in the *opposite* direction, by acknowledging the possibility of gay, and then textually dismissing it as being anythnig of importance or threat. Does that make sense.

On the other hand, there are so many people who do look at Sam and Dean that way: we have all the things that go bump in the night, and we have the way they dress up as official people and fake it, and now they're being hunted not just by the bad guys but by the cops and by the other hunters. They're *constantly* aware of how they're being seen, and the gay is the least important part of it because they don't really see it as relevant. Which is part of the reason why, for me, it's so much fun to *make* it relevant...

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

applications and digressions on TDS/TCR (http://stellar-dust.livejournal.com/282132.html?#cutid1)

[cosmicdancer.livejournal.com]

Whoa hey, one of my fandoms getting mentioned on metafandom! How often does that happen?

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I think it was Ruth Benedict (but possibly Margaret Mead?) who said that the thing about cultures is that whatever men do in that culture, whether it's schlepping huge rocks or hunting hummingbirds, *that's* considered a big deal. I find the whole concept of the Male Gaze to be a prime example of this. Whoot, men are gazing! So that makes gazing active and powerful and necessitous of huge plenteously secreting testicles! Dude, you're sitting in a movie theater or on the living room couch looking at pictures.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I keep meaning to read some Margaret Mead, but then I keep reading people who think she's full of crap, so I'm just so confused, and go read about Thor Heyerdahl schlepping huge rocks instead, because I *know* *he's* full of crap, and also his books usually have pictures of him shirtless and sweaty in them.

...anyway. I think for me the point of the male gaze is asking *why* gazing, in this culture, is a Thing Men Do. As opposed to a Thing People Do, like driving or eating take-out. (I have read statistics which make a very good case that it's because Men are Stupid - which is to say, men are apparently much more easily influenced by advertising than women are, so in the media their gazes are, quantitatively monetarily, more valuable. Which is why, for example, SpikeTV started showing stupid game shows with scantily-clad women instead of Highlander reruns and I had to go elsewhere for my sweaty half-naked men. Yet one more reason why an advertising-supported culture is bad.)

[strongplacebo.livejournal.com]

How does she know what a hypothetical gay male likes? She only knows what *slashers* like, right?

That's true. I think your term 'slasher's gaze' might be more accurate, since the only gay man's gaze I know how to use is the one I've taught myself from slash. (In this instance, however, my friend Pádraig, who is gay, did say he found the boy attractive. Score! We have one occasion in which one gay man and one slasher found the same one situation slashy! \m/)

The amount which these two intersect is interesting, because even though they are different, obviously the 'slasher's gaze' is necessarily tinged by the 'gay man's gaze' because when we write slash, we have to be able to write our characters as gay men, even if they are versions of that specifically appropriated for slash.

I'm just as likely to look at a male and think "he'd play really well in slash" (or even "I want to see him in leather pants! As a rentboy! Up against the wall!", or, in days of yore, "He's so bishie!") than I am to think he's attractive through the lens of my *own* sexuality, which skews somewhat different.

I find this interesting, purely for the amount that we're willing to accept as sexy in slash that we wouldn't find sexy ourselves. I read plenty of fic centred around BDSM, but if someone came anywhere near my with a studded panel in real life, I'd be out of the door faster than you could say sadomasochism.

I think in some ways, the 'slasher's gaze' is a stepping stone in this feminist bid to reclaim the 'male gaze'. Before we can see men as being recipients to sexual desire when seen by women, we have to have this transition - the man is pursuing as well as being pursued, and then he can relinquish the role of the hunter, so to speak.

Suddenly the man who leans over the counter has to be concious of that strip of skin that's showing under his t-shirt, and the way his jeans fit, because someone could be seeing that, and wanting him - someone who is free to act on that desire.

I feel this is part of the reason some men are uncomfortable around gay men. They aren't used to being in that role of pursued.

Well. That only took about 14 hours after I first opened the tab.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Fourteen hours is, um, less than fourteen days, right? Oops.

I'm glad you don't hate me for totally twisting your words and then quoting without permission!

Plus you even think I have a point, which is a bonus.

I think it's definitely true that slash and gay perspective have a lot in common. Particularly the more carefully-written slash, which I am always at pains to remember is not all of it - which is why I am careful to distinguish.

And mostly *YES* to everything you said here, and I wish I'd thought to say it that clearly!

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

I just had this huge long post and then I realized that you'd alreadt said it all. So, I'll just stand here and applaud :)

B/c, yes!!!! What we're often looking at is not just the imagined male character looking at/desiring another male character but a WOMAN writing this male character looking at/desiring another male character, i.e., all of it is filtered through and construed within our female fantasy space, right?

Also, you're doing exactly what I called for in my other Notcapade post, aren't you? Actually moving *forward*! Yeah!!!

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you!

>>all of it is filtered through and construed within our female fantasy space, right?
You are your female fantasy space! Wasn't I careful to say that I was only looking at what happened within the story, not who the audience was? ... of course I didn't manage to quite keep that out of it either, and yes, yes, it's so easy to go to this is women writing for women! Because it's true, and it's probably why it works so well! And I do think it's something that comes much more naturally to a female author, simply because she's more likely to see the possibility of it. But looking just at the 'slash aesthetic' part of the idea, I think that it ought to be possible to write such a story entirely in isolation - as happened in the early days of MfU, when drawerfic was all there was.

Moving forward, yes! But part of the reason it's so hard to move forward is that it's so hard to remember what's happened back in the past, and have I ever thanked you, in particular, for how much work you've done in making that meta backlist visible and available? Because I literally never would have been able to write this, much less come up with the ideas, without all the resources you've done so much in putting together.

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Oh, yay; this is wonderful, and puts together a bunch of neat ideas all in one place. Thanks!

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it! I enjoy ideas that are neat in both the figurative and literal sense.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

BRAINY. LIKE.
(Here from metafandom)

whereas you have shows which by any rights (emo-porn, setting, gaygaygay male friendships, quality of writing, hot guys in leather, whatever) ought to have massive slash fandoms but never really quite made it over the threshhold - and in many cases, I think, it's because the het male perspective is simply so entrenched, and pervasive, in the wordview of those canon that there's no friendly way in for a slasher's gaze.

A fannish friend of mine once made an observation regarding Nip/Tuck, in which she suggested the reason Nip/Tuck has virtually no slash fandom whatsoever, is because it's too slashy already. (And she was writing *before* the most recent season!) Her view, IIRC, was that the relationship between the men is canonically homoromantic, that the show sets up every slashy possibility that you can think of - in short, if Christian and Sean were going to cross that line, they'd cross it in the show. The show offers every slashy thing you can think of except for the blowjobs and buggery. So fangirls need not write the slash.

I think she's on to something, though I can't quite pin it down. Is it the "slash aesthetic", as you say, that's most important - more important than the porn? Because if it was all about the porn, surely there would be tons of Sean/Christian smutfic out there. And yet by all accounts there isn't.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Alas, all I know about Nip/Tuck is literally what I learned from pruriently reading all of the Wikipedia articles linked to intersex. Although I have to say that what I got from that is that the sexual relationships in Nip/Tuck, even the non-traditional ones, seem to be heavily drenched in a highly patriarchal, judgemental, non-sex-positive viewpoint. On the other hand, perhaps random wiki articles aren't the best evidence to judge from. ;)

I do think that the 'slash aesthetic' is more important than the porn, or even the canonicity of relationships, although since I'm much more interested in slash than in gay sex, I've never followed a show that had canon gay but no slash fandom.

I don't really think that 'too slashy' is the problem, though, because there are plenty of slash fandoms that have that (in fact, I often get fed up with shipping them - or at least reading first times - because it becomes unbelievable that at this point, House and Wilson, or Duncan and Methos, or Starsky and Hutch, or whoever, haven't dealt with the UST one way or another. But that doesn't stop the rest of the fandom from writing them again and again...) And there are a couple of shows I follow where the homoromanticism is off the charts - I defy you to establish Christian and Sean are more in love that Alan Shore and Denny Crane or J.D. and Turk! - that don't have the fandom, and I do think it's because they don't have the way in.

[wychwood]

Fantastic thinky post; thank you. I shall have to go and think about this a lot.

And you get het stories that have the slashy feel anyway because the female character knows how to put the same power behind her desire that a man does and doesn't hesitate to do so.

And that to me explains very well the kind of "queer het" idea that people often apply to, say, John/Aeryn on Farscape; she has a powerful, *active* gaze of her own, which challenges the man who is its subject, and forcing us as viewer to reconsider the nature of the heterosexual relationship between them.

[fandrogyny.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Part of what makes "Farscape" a great show (and John and Aeryn's relationship so interesting and complicated) is that Aeryn is a very whole character, and that includes her enjoyment of both sex and intimidation.

It makes me wonder, though: with John getting constantly penetrated/invaded/kidnapped/raped, does that mean that there's a large amount of slash within the fandom? The series is rife with subtext between John and Scorpius (and Scorpius and Braca, come to that), but are people willing to let themselves (and their versions of the characters) touch Scorpius?

[rushin-doll.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom.

How very interesting. I'm one of those rare people in fandom who has never really been into slash. I've read a bit, but never truly immersed myself in it as many people seem to. And this post is interesting because it makes my thinky-brain go "Oh, you should totally check out more slash now and see if this is right and the slash culture is really a (positively) subversive movement to redefine gender power dynamics".

I probably won't, since I'm rather busy, but oh how I want to.

I do want to ask, though, what you feel the core thing is here. You mention that you find some f/m stuff to be very "slashy" to you. Is that specifically because the male is subject to that somewhat coercive social assumption that he is an object of desire and that it is a core part of his identity that he is? I mean, is it that males are cast into the role of female in this very specific way, or is something else at work here that I'm missing.

Rather intrigued and curious,
Ana

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know, I very late, but here's some attempts at an answer:

First, while a lot of slash culture is a positive, feminist movement, a lot of it is also dreck that simply takes the patriarchal norms and reverses them without subverting them first, and a lot more of it is indulgent fantasy where the subversiveness is incidental and it's kind of lame unless you're into the fantasy. I don't want to get your hopes up too high! But there is a lot of good stuff out there - I'd love to one day put together a recs list of slash fics for non-slashers. And on the other hand, you could start reading and then discover that the viewpoint is addictive.

You last question - I think 'coercive' and 'core part of his identity' are a bit strong, as generalizations - we aren't *actually* turning them into women, after all, at least not usually, although genderfuck stories can be fascinating - but I think at least the recognition that 'objectification' is a possibility, and creating a sense of self that allows for that possibility, even if it's never followed up on through action, are fundamental. I'd also be very hesitant to say 'cast into the role of female', because the fact that it's in only this one specific way, which is related to the idea of the default gaze, is very important. Especially given the history of slashers being accused of turning male characters into weepy girls.

Finally! I was mostly aiming this for an audience of people who were very conversant in slash, and would be able to pick up on the places where I was accidentally misleading, so *please* don't take what I have to say as the last word! Slash has deep waters, but there's a lot of fascinating stuff down there.

Here via metafandom

[fandrogyny.livejournal.com]

I haven't the time to reply adequately here, but I will thank you for this post, especially this quote:

"Slash as freed female desire, as tranference to unmarked bodies, as female-only space, feminist and queer subversion both - I think, for me, it all comes down to: we have created a space where the default male gaze is inverted, and turned on men. And we're the people looking."

Re: Here via metafandom

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I never know how to reply adequately to thank-you comments - 'you're welcome' seems so, well, self-evident! - but I'm so glad you enjoyed thinking about this. And that line particularly, which I kind of feared was a bit overwrouight. :)

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is fabulous, and a great way of talking about slash.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Okay, it would've been nice if I'd got around to answering this before you went off the edge of the map, but the praise is appreciated, as always!

Here Via Metafandom

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

First of all, there's so much I want to say, but you wrote so much and it's all whiring in my brain still, so all I can say is thanks for this essay it really freshsed up a lot for me, since I've been reading slash for almsot half a decade and have yet yo actually define what it is exactly I read!

It also made me want to write my own Slash essay, may I please link to this when I finally post it?

Re: Here Via Metafandom

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Please do link me if you ever get around to writing that post - point me to it, anyway! I'm still fascinated by this. I've been reading slash about as long as you have (although when I think back, I was seeking out 'slashy' stories a lot earlier) and when I found this theory it all came together all at once. I'm simulteneously gobsmacked and gratified that it's resonated with so many people, and continues to do so.

Here from metafandom

[yourlibrarian]

But no, not really - it's simply that the existence of this outsider POV that does not respect the security that comes with mere maleness gives us the first crack that we can use to pry our way in and overturn all of those assumptions.

That's a very interesting idea. And I really like the way you've pulled together various strands of discussion here. I enjoyed reading your post.

Re: Here from metafandom

[melannen.livejournal.com]

The part about outsider POV showed up later, and I'm really fascinated by the idea of trying to forecast which fandoms are slashy, though I'm not entirely sure it worked. (People, including me, seem to be going mostly to the 'oh, that's why my pet fandom isn't popular!' place with it. Which may not me the best way to test the hyposthesis.)

Thanks to much for stopping by!

[2am-optimism.livejournal.com]

This is such a super post - it makes sense of a lot of vaguely formed questions I've had running around my head about the nature of slash, and why I like it. Lots of stuff to think about :)

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I hope you've had some good thinking! And I'm glad you liked the post.

[kayljay.livejournal.com]

Loved this! It took me off on a different tangent which may or may not be totally relevant, but I had to go there.

As females, who among us hasn't looked at a male with a woman and wondered what exactly he sees in her, especially if she's doesn't fall into society's perception of a "good-looking female"? Don't we wince, cringe or feel anger if a woman is "too" sexual or has the charm but not necessarily the looks to wrap men around her little finger? I'm not talking about merely one man, but a Scarlett O'Hara type who has all the men in the room jockeying for the smallest smidgen of her attention?

If we have trouble figuring out what draws a straight man's gaze to a woman, can we hope to get into a gay man's head with any accuracy? Should we even try? Perhaps in the end, it's a hit or miss venture.

And if you're a straight female, do you find yourself attracted physically to certain women and would they be considered attractive? Do your standards for an attractive woman parallel your standards for an attractive man?

I know, adding more fuel to the fire. :Shrugs:

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Um...I think you're confusing personal taste with the idea that somehow all men share the same taste. I mean, "As females, who among us hasn't looked at a male with a woman and wondered what exactly he sees in her"? Eh? And you never wonder the same thing about a woman and a man? Of course you do. Not all women have the same taste as you, so of course not all men do, either.

[thawrecka]

I find this very interesting and it certainly explains a lot ot me about why I don't feel like a slasher even though I've read and written a lot of boyslash. I must say, though, I'm a little squicked by the idea that in order to make a man desirable he must be rendered passive and vulnerable, if only for the implications that in order to be worthy of desire someone must be weakened somehow.

Nonetheless, yes, fascinating and well written so it actually makes me understand this viewpoint in a way I could not before.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I think ... it's very had to talk about, because our culture has all these built-in value judgements with words like 'passive' and even 'weak'. I'm still up in the air about whether using that sort of traditionally-feminine desirability is good in itself, or good as subversion of patriarchal assumptions, or both.

I do think that a lot of slashers would be willing to argue with you whether 'passive' and 'vulnerable' are the same as 'weak', though. The concept of dropping all your defenses as the ultimate source of real strength is something that runs through not only Eastern but Western culture, from Aristotle straight through to Obi-wan Kenobi, and is a *very* strong current in a lot of slash stories. (Of course, the idea of torturing a destroying a character until he's lost his strength of self is also very common - you can go a lot of different places, starting from a slasher's gaze.)

If you're still interested you might want to try my reply to heyiya below, where I cover some of the same ground, at greater length if not necessarily more coherently. Regardless, thanks for taking the time to look at it this way!

You inspired me!

[fandrogyny.livejournal.com]

I mentioned this post and your definition of slash as "inverted male gaze" at my own LJ, in a post called "Can Republicans be Slashers?"

Re: You inspired me!

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I linked back! (As you probably noticed.) I'm terribly flattered & I do plan to comment over there as soon as I'm finally caught up here.

from metafandom

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

This is such an great essay! I applaud your not-using the academic-jargon terms even though such terms are pretty much my native language and I suspect I translated your post into them while I was reading (but then, I invariably *want* discussion to spill over into the realm of RL politics...) – but it's really a shining example of how to present complex ideas in a simple and readable way. I salute you.

What I think is especially interesting in your proposal of the slash gaze is the way that the vulnerability of being-looked-at is coupled with a sense of violence in the looking on, the something out there that's watching. I associate that violence often with the patriarchal power and privilege (hey, I warned you!) of the heteronormative male gaze, and so it's interesting and important to think about the violence that even a nondominant gaze might do.

I tend to think, for example, that it's okay for me to objectify women because I'm a woman too and I'm objectifying them while remaining always conscious of their subjectivity, hence subverting the dominant discourse of objectification. But I think about the politics of my own desires too, and the violence of the gaze that your post hints at without quite coming right out and describing is the reason that is necessary.

I still enjoy the desiring gaze outside of a het male context though, whether giving or receiving in offline life or in fannish appropriations... But when I direct it at a man, I always filter it through the slash gaze in my mind. I thought that was more to do with my queerness than my slashiness, so I found your post very interesting and sense-making on those grounds.

I admit it, I put all those feminist-politics-buzzwords in on purpose. I still mean what I said, though! If you can figure out what that actually was, I fear this comment may have been less than coherent. :)

Re: from metafandom

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I have nothing against the academic terms! It *is* possible to write clearly with them - but those omnes in particular have so much cultural baggage that open discussions seem to devolve to often into arguments about what the terms mean, so I thought I'd try to head that one off at the pass - and it did make me think a lot harder about what I was really saying.

I think the violence - the *threat* - is a very real part of that way of being-looked-at, *especially* in our cultural context, where turning it on a women is threating because she's presumed to be powerless, and turning it on a male is threatening because it challenges the patriarchal order. But I also think that there's a distinction between 'power' and 'violence', that a gaze (and a sexuality) can be powerful without being destructive, that it's possible to use power for *good*. This is where I generally start wanting to talk in terms of yin/yang and trimurti and lunar imagery; we all have our foibles. :) (And this is probably *not* where my thoughts would've gone if I'd given into the temptation to talk about objectification, but trying to think of six different ways to rephrase it in one paragraph really made me think about what I was rephrasing...)

I don't know - I could write a whole 'nother essay on this, after thinking about it for another six months - but I think at least in part there's having the ability to look *back*, that there can be an underlying level of assumed respect that turns the power from a threat into a *promise*. Maybe that underlying respect, that non-radical assumption that boys are, in fact, people, what we're talking about when we talk about how we like slash because they're equal, even when we're writing about Snape spanking Harry across his desk. Just cause he's people doesn't mean he wouldn't look good bent over a desk, and doesn't mean he can't like it, because people-ness is no longer linked to sexuality. And so there's the element of choice, that anybody can take either role, instead of assuming that accepting the passive role strips one of the possibility of power, the freedom to accept the passive role is an element of power ... that really kind of gets to the core of a lot of current feminist arguments anyway, doesn't it?

Which isn't to say that there isn't a lot of slash out there that completely and violently objectifies men as much as any hustler issue objectifies women. I blame the patriarchy!

[snake-easing.livejournal.com]

This is amazing... I don't have anything to add right now, but I really appreciate the thought that went into it.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Thanks! (I figured I was putting all that thought into it anyway, I might as well share the wealth.)

PS: I love your icon! Who's doing the kissing there? Suffering Sapphism ftw.

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

here via ithiliana. thank you so much for writing this. it's brilliant.

this just hit me like a ton of bricks: within the slashy story itself, men view themselves as people who are looked at, rather than as the ones who do the looking.

great summation. will be rereading; thank you.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Thank *you*!

(I've had a tab open to your analyses of the fanfic book since ... forever. I was waiting to post this until I'd finidhed reading and thinking about them, but then I realized that I'd *never* be done, so, anyway, thanks for doing that!)

[villainny.livejournal.com]

...well that was fascinating. Blimey.

*reminds self to read threads when actually awake*

Thank you.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! Drop by anytime; I'm occasionally coherent.