It's nice to be able to use my powers for good occasionally.

Mole has a Ph.D., and Bear doesn't have any sort of college degree at all.

Y'know the thing about Mole? She uses big scary words to talk about big scary concepts (and nope, Chaz doesn't have any sort of college degree either, and is easily intimidated by them as do) - and then she says that this or that sucks moose cock, and suddenly I feel right at home...

Count your blessings. Academic decorum is my native tongue - great for dealing with college faculty and admin, not so great for the rest of the world. About half the people I talk to think I'm pretentious, because I'm largely incapable of making my language less formal. I certainly can't do it on the fly in a high-speed conversation!

Though it's neat having a six-year-old who knows and uses such polysyllabic words as defenestration, decapitation, and cephalonomancy without missing a beat. Even if it does make his kindergarten teacher wonder what the hell we're teaching the kid.

*sighs* It's not slash if the relationship is canon. It's just a relationship that happens to be between two people of the same sex. I, for instance, rarely read slash fiction (it's not my kink) but I do like same-sex relationships in my fiction/media when the characters' sexuality is canon.

Which, by the way, haven't read Carnival, but picked it up in the bookstore on Friday and was fascinated by the first few pages. Wasn't able to buy it at the time but it's now on my must-read list.

i'm just glad you finally defined slash, because, it didnt seem to be googlable, and i am too old and proud to ask.. I get it, it's Clark Kent and Jimmie Olsen in the broom closet..

I've been lurking a bit here but couldn't stay in the shadows for this one. ;-)

First off, after reading the various discussions you reference, I have *got* to buy Carnival. ;-) I'm encouraged that the main relationship in my WIP may actually not be detrimental to selling the thing (assuming it doesn't explode on me three-quarters of the way through :-).

(I'm a 'baby' pro at the moment, though I started writing many years ago by writing fanfic and yes, some of it was slash.)

I've got all the various comments running through my head in a sort of LJ stew, so rather than go back and dig them out and reply to each and every one, I'll reply to the stew, instead. ;-)

I would never call anything canon 'slash'. I 'came of age' with fandom long before Buffy brought us an actual canon same sex pairing (media only, though there have been precious few in print). I question the idea of the purpose of slash being overtly subversive, though, at least not in the sense I got from the link above. Additive, yes, but subtractive as well since fandom has a remarkable capacity to ignore inconvenient 'facts' in canon and it often edits out of its collective consciousness anything that ruins its fun (many Highlander fans*, Alien fans** and Stargate fans*** are very good at this having had much practice. ;-) Nor do I think it reasonable to equate what is essentially a categorization convention with some overriding complicity with our society's already twisted views on sexuality. Might as well say that by labeling novels SF or Fantasy and segregating them in their own sections of the bookstore we're being complicit in the ghettoization of the genre. No, we're just keeping them as far away from those icky romances and the pop-psych books as we can. :-) I certainly don't want to have to paw through the bodice rippers to find the latest Pratchett. By the same token, if I'm looking for a story that deals with the only rational relationship I see in a universe, I certainly don't want to be slapped in the face with megabytes of 'ship (m/f pairings in at least one fandom).

* Highlander: There should have been only one.
** Alien: There should have been only one sequel.
*** Stargate: So many seasons - where do I begin? :-)

Give me Fraught (with a side of noble/tragic) and make it not stupid and I'm yours until the end of time.

Mmmmm, mmmm, mmmm. I like my Fraught with weird, awkward silences, but it's always nice to know there are others who share my palate.

I have nothing constructive to add here except to say that I liked "Botticelli" very much.

I think that the Mysterious Thing that makes "slashy" love stories Different from yer bog-standard heteronormative love story is that they trigger the kink in people who have it,

Well, yeah, pretty much *g*. Which is why I will continue to recommend books with "X, while not a work of slash fanfic, appeals to me in much the same way that slash does." Or "resembles slash" or "reads like slash" or "feels slashy."

Also: Mmmmm, fraught.

*pat pat pat* That review you liked, it sold me the book. Does that help at all?

Well, it is offensive. But you're doing the good work: writing a compelling non-het relationship helps normalize those relationships within the heteronormative framework. Yes you'll have to hear offensive, clueless shit as a result... but what you wrote, and these discussions about it, all this actually does change the way people think about these things.

Now -that's- fanfic. (swoon). And to think mine own always had a Mary Sue falling for the Russian. I think I like yours better.

Wow.

Plus, that post keeps reminding me of this thread again. I understand that truepenny is being well meaning here but... I can't agree. That, and I've never been that fond of Foucault and his ilk. But I am digressing.

Anyway, people write slash for a variety of reasons, some in order to get off, some because they think they're subverting some paradigm. Different motivations for different people.

And yet again it's made clear to me that my view of the world, fiction and relationships is -- different than a large segment of the world.

Because in all honesty, I don't give a rat's ass whether a character's relationships are gay or poly or straight. What I care about is that I can care about and relate to the characters as people, with flaws, scars and all the desires that any human would have.

Since you had me in tears again today while I read Carnival at lunch, I think you did a pretty damn good job of making me care about these two deeply flawed males, who just happen to be--gasp-- in a homosexual relationship. Since I'm the straightest of straight females, I think that says something.

I always have to wonder why people feel the need to stuff things into tidy labeled boxes. I can almost see the dismissive little wave of the hand, 'Oh, it's slash', as if by putting the book into that box they don't have to take it seriously. Is it that scary to put all relationships on equal footing? Does it threaten their world view so much they have to try and denigrate it? That's what it feels like to me, an attempt to downgrade something they just can't deal with.

And I just don't get that.