Can we have a moment to remember Postapocalyptic Humans as Slaves of Giant Cats, and also the 15-foot cock? Good times, man, good times.

Man, yeah. 15' alien tree cock! Fuck, I love typo-ridden badfic at times.

GIANT CATS.

You know, I made the mistake of reading some slash meta from what appears to be, I dunno, an older school branch of slash fandom, and not only do I have eyestrain from reading it on my iPhone, I have it from how hard my eyes rolled out of my head.

I've had slash goggles as long as I can remember.

Yet curiously, this fails to lead to an, eww! het! response, nor is the het I read worse* than the slash, or somehow more prey to antiquated gender roles. What kinda het did these peeps read?

*Okay, maybe in Certain Fandoms, but that's mostly because the only people who slash in it that I can find aren't really in Said Fandoms. Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? Yes, I'm talking about Dark Angel. OMG, I've read so much bad het in that, the shit that actually fits the descriptions in said meta, but that's NOT the case in any of my other fandoms. It's like, a craptastic exception.

What kinda het did these peeps read?

Presumably, Mary Sue, with the Spock, in the drawing room.

Well, I don't know that they're THAT old school.

I think they're more from the 80s/90s era, and such slashterpieces as A Fish Called Krycek. It would probably help if anyone in threads like that (aside from the people who are honest enough to admit that having a female character involved bothers them on some visceral level--which is an argument/explanation I've seen from some friends, and is more complicated than I've made it seen) would clearly articulate what they hope to find in a het story when they venture out of the slash corner, and what they've found instead. Reading it, I feel like I'm looking through a dirty window at people who are wandering around Hetsville without a map and getting trapped in the bad neighborhoods.

I suspect Nutty is right. And also? Such het is still around, I guess, because I keep seeing people say, with straight faces fonts, "I stay away from het with OFCs because of the Mary Sue issue." And I go, buh?

I've seen damn little SPN het, fr'instance, that actually uses a character you could call a Mary Sue.

Of course today I saw a couple of anti-slash gen writers (absolutely anti-slash, not just gen-preferring) boggling at the concept that there could be some latent misogyny in slash circles. Not just boggling, mocking the very idea.

I did not, in fact, come down on them like the wrath of Andrea Dworkin. Tempted though I was.

So... yeah. Old-school ideas, still quite rampant.

I suspect Nutty is right. And also? Such het is still around, I guess, because I keep seeing people say, with straight faces fonts, "I stay away from het with OFCs because of the Mary Sue issue." And I go, buh?

So frustrating!

Of course today I saw a couple of anti-slash gen writers (absolutely anti-slash, not just gen-preferring) boggling at the concept that there could be some latent misogyny in slash circles. Not just boggling, mocking the very idea.

What are you gonna do? There are strands of misogyny in some slash circles (internalized, and often unconscious), hints of homophobia in some gen and het circles (again, often unconscious), and so on and so forth. It's that damned made of people problem.

Somehow, today was the day for me to click on links, blink, and go, "okay, so could you tell me what assumptions you haven't yet checked at the door again?"

I've seen damn little SPN het, fr'instance, that actually uses a character you could call a Mary Sue.

Most of the Supernatural het I've seen could just as easily have taken place with a headless female body. The characterization of the female partner, if she be not canonical, is often the very last priority.

Of course today I saw a couple of anti-slash gen writers (absolutely anti-slash, not just gen-preferring) boggling at the concept that there could be some latent misogyny in slash circles. Not just boggling, mocking the very idea.

OMG I saw that too, and I rolled my eyes so hard. I couldn't even formulate a response that would have opened their eyes, so I just filed the participants onto the Stupid List, and closed the window.

I think they're more from the 80s/90s era, and such slashterpieces as A Fish Called Krycek.

Actually, now that you point that out, I can theorize a little. If they molded their slash goggles in that era, then it's entirely possible that heavy exposure to the het OTP KGB made them so violently allergic that they've been overreacting to het ever since. I certainly know that at that time, in that fandom, slash could occasionally be the antidote for the flavor of extreme domestic normativity that infected segments of het. (Unlike most fandoms since, XF's huge audience included huge numbers of people who never had, and never would again, be in fandom -- and those people, in a mass, could be really overwhelming and stiflingly heteronormative, gender-normative, etc.)

But, like, been there, read that (wrote that), ate the t-shirt, still like girl parts.

Your therapy process, let me show you it.

(Unlike most fandoms since, XF's huge audience included huge numbers of people who never had, and never would again, be in fandom -- and those people, in a mass, could be really overwhelming and stiflingly heteronormative, gender-normative, etc.)

t cough Nikita fandom.

I think XF qualifies as the Microsoft of fandoms. Except in speed terms; by the time I was getting into active writing (season 5), the majority of the slashers were already on their way out the door and into that awful Sentinel show.

(Why??)

Because Sentinel was really, really ridiculously gay?

Because people have hair and muscles fetishes?