I'm still on a quest for the SPN comm that allows everything else but wincest. There are gen comms, and comms that are restricted in other focussed ways; and comms that are restricted along ethical lines too strict for me (e.g., disallowing Teh Gay as well). It's tiring, trolling ten comms rather than one; but I've decided I can't bear to be on a comm that does allow wincest, so the extra work is required for me, at this point. There doesn't seem to be that one perfect comm that is meant for fic that can be adult, without breaking a taboo that's important to me.

I'm over the whole "all fandom must follow my desires" thing, but, I feel that I am a unique flower marketing niche that has not yet been broken out and exploited in the manner thata marketing niche deserves. Mostly, I am hoping to guilt trip somebody else into making a comm because I wouldn't know how to admin one even if I did have the ambition to start it.

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I gave up, Nutty. I read the newsletter and I post my stories to SPN_Gen, and I cannot bear the effort of finding yet another community to deal with.

Makes me miss the old days of XFC...

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I'm not trying to make a moral judgment

You know. To be completely frank, I think I do, a little bit. I mean, it's fanfic after all and we're all here for our enjoyment, but I think there is a line there somewhere. The line is in slightly different places for different people but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, you know? And Wincest that doesn't problematize the incest aspect of the relationship crosses mine, and the widespread fannish acceptance of it as just a minor obstruction in the path of OTP does go a way toward lowering the threshold, which I find unsettling.

Like chan, for example (and I'm not talking about an adult/sexually mature 17 year-old, but adult/12-15 year-old.) I'm not saying the subject matter is completely taboo, but there is something to be said about the way it's portrayed. So, I can say Lolita is a great work of literature, and find Adrian Lyne's adaptation incredibly problematic in the way it removed the most of the irony from the book and portrayed Humbert/Lolita as some tragic epic romance with soft-focus camera work and swelling violin music. Happy-fun incest is feels to me sort of like the latter.

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I really like "Wincest is my cilantro" as an explanation, and plan to invoke it for that sort of discussion in the future.

(I find wingfic far less Out of Character than incest for SPNfic.)

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And Wincest that doesn't problematize the incest aspect of the relationship crosses mine,

But not all Wincest doesn't do this. ETA: augh, double negative. Not all wincest doesn't problematize the brother relationship. I would go as far to say the majority of it does problematize it, or address it. I can could on one hand happy-fun incest stories I've even encountered so far in the fandom. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, and I don't particularly have any desire to look in the first place. Not all Wincest, or incest fic, is happy fun, they're doing this because they're both hot fic. Most of it is exploring the relationship while still being aware and dealing with the fact that they are brothers. And I even if it wasn't, I still don't think there's any kind of moral obligation fic writers have to deal with incest that way. I don't agree with it, but I think it's a valid form of expression. Who am I to say that what so and so writes is morally suspect?

if you say that it's a *personal* moral line, that's different. But saying that there is some cultural-societal moral line is not something I can support.

I get the grousing, but it's like saying (minus the incest factor) why isn't x writer writing all the Taylor/Ryan (The OC) I want to read? Why isn't the fandom giving me all that T/R I really want? It's an ineffable question, because fandom does what fandom does, and you either find the stuff you want to read or you find something else. It's pointless to grouse about something that has no controls. Which, again, I'm not trying to police anyone or anyone's feelings, but I don't really understand.

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Well, I'd go so far as to say that just problematizing the incest -- hmm. It's how you get to have the story, isn't it?

I mean, it's like slash in SG-1, you can't have Jack/Daniel without addressing the issue of being gay in the military, or you can't have Jack/Sam in SG-1 without having the story address the military hierarchy and the fraternization rules.

For me, problematizing the incest doesn't suddenly make the story a story I want to read. It's pretty much necessary to the genre, unless you're really just doing happy-fun PWP (which I have seen, and from good writers). And while it acknowledges the issues I have with incest, it doesn't resolve them in a way that makes me comfortable reading the story.

In fact, the very fact that a story is incest makes me uncomfortable reading it, regardless of how the incest issues (cultural/moral taboos, turning a fraternal relationship sexual, changing the maternal position Dean had during Sam's childhood) are resolved. It pretty much is a cilantro issue for me, even aside from any other questions.

Does that make sense?

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I can could on one hand happy-fun incest stories I've even encountered so far in the fandom.

Really? Cause I can think of 2-3 prolific writers who wanked their way onto (a) metafandom and (b) f_w explaining how the happy-fun kind is the only kind worth doing. Like, big-name people, who tend to bellwether.

Which is not to say that unhappy-unfun is not available, but, she who squees loudest is most heard.

I tend to go ahead and call my line a personal one, although I happen to share it with, you know, Levi-Strauss. I mostly do that though because it's boring to have to explain again and again that using nuclear weapons, when a frightened guy with a big rock would do, is irritating.

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if you say that it's a *personal* moral line, that's different. But saying that there is some cultural-societal moral line is not something I can support.

It's decidedly the former. It's profound *personal* discomfort and I make no pretentions toward declaring it as any kind of a universal line.

I'm sorry if it looks like we're ganging up on you, SA. For what it's worth, I really appreciate you participating in the discussion in a calm, rational fashion. I haven't really read Wincest, and most of my take on it comes from listening on the LJ discussions where people are squeeing and bursting into pieces about how hot the way Dean looked at Sam and vice verse, and oh yeah, they're totally doing it behind the closed motel door, and how the writers are so into fanservice with all the boys-being-mistaken-gay stuff, since they clearly know the fans want them to get it on, etc. etc. This reads to me more like "OMG HOT" school of thought, but I'm probably getting only a limited, superficial impression of the particular corner of the fandom.

As for fic -- I do think I'd have much easier time with it if the incest aspect is problematized and tragic, but I just can't see the part where both Sam and Dean could reconcile themselves to this and could look forward to a hopeful future together with great sex lives, because my brain just refuses to go there. And no, I have no expectations that anyone who enjoys Wincest would stop writing it, just because it makes me uncomfortable. Not at all. I feel like I should be able to express a measure of displeasure about this particular fandom trend though.

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Dean does Nanowrimo

Which continues to amuse me. I *heart* crack.

I think this was the first SPN story that I read. And I read it before I watched the show (okay, I watched the pilot but the horror movie bits were too good at what they were trying to do and I didn't watch again for a while) to the point where a quick scan led me to realize I had mentally swapped the characters.

Now I need to read it again. Because, yes, love the crack. And sometimes it leads me to stuff that I like in both crack and more traditionally well done forms.

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This reads to me more like "OMG HOT" school of thought,

This is kind of the same school of thought that turns snape into a woobie. Or have Duncan and Methos set up house in Ibiza. Or, like one unfortunate girl I knew, turn Blair Sandburg into a sprite (a fucking *sprite*) that flies around Jim's head.

I would agree that it seems like more BNF-y, well known writers have gone that route than seems to be the norm in previous fandoms, and who knows why that is; the destructive prettiness of the cast, perhaps? Or something. Anyway, without trying to pull any old school fan bullshit, I started watching Supernatural when it first aired, and some of the first fic that came out of the fandom was Wincest. Not the hearts and flowers crap, that came later. So when I think of Wincest in fandom, I think of that first fraught, tense brotherly line, because I'd come straight out of Numb3rs 'cest, which has a similar, if more age-oriented, dynamic. And I never followed the other lines that inevitably came as more people poured into the fandom. So I'm sure, Nutty, that I'm missing some things that you're talking about, but they've never interested me because I had this other line that deals with the many ramifications that, as Vonnie points out, make the story in the first place.

For what it's worth, I really appreciate you participating in the discussion in a calm, rational fashion.

No problem.

although I happen to share it with, you know, Levi-Strauss. I mostly do that though because it's boring to have to explain again and again that using nuclear weapons, when a frightened guy with a big rock would do, is irritating.

I don't understand what that has to do with what we're talking about, and while I understand and respect L-S I disagree with him on many things.

I feel like I should be able to express a measure of displeasure about this particular fandom trend though.

I think you should too; but what is frustrating for me is hearing it framed in the listen-to-my-moral-objections. Which is not what you were doing, but I still feel like I get it from all sides for liking Wincest and liking that it's a more common trend in a fandom I like. I'm not trying to change your mind, but it's kind of like being told your cake tastes gross when you really like your cake. *shrug* neither of us can do anything about our different cake preferences, but that doesn't mean our cake preferences are or should be a point of contention.

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