hope | subtext in fantexts

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subtext in fantexts

I think it's one of the potential drawbacks of slash that its very existence to an extent denies the possibility of homoerotic subtext in gen stories.

And yeah, okay, I know all you SPN readers out there will be "wtf! in gen stories they sleep in the same bed and give each other baths ALL THE TIME!" but, okay - frequently I also notice stories posted with notes like "subtexty wincest" or "pre-slash" or "you can read this as slash if you want" or "hints of slash".

In other words. SUBTEXT. Slash's existence potentially excises homoerotic subtext from non-slash stories: because as soon as there's subtext, frequently authors feel they have to re-classify. Which means a whole lot of things, most on the side of the audience reception to the story.

More than a few of the gen stories I really, really love - in this fandom and other fandoms - have strong subtext. That is just subtext. Juicy, homoerotic subtext. Which is satisfying in its own right; something completely other than slash. If I'm looking for slash to read, I won't be satisfied by something that's just subtext. And if I'm reading a gen story about a same-sex partnership, I'd be disappointed - even unsatisfied - if it was strikingly lacking in subtext.

Interestingly problematic division there, I reckon.

Interesting in terms of SPN specifically too; the text itself has such a strong subtext and text of emotional and physical intimacy; a queer reading of it is quite easy. It's fascinating watching people classify their stories as slash or non-slash when they re-create or even emphasise just a little the intimacy that occurs on the show itself.

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i VERY MUCH agree. i think that making queerness textual rather than (subtextual) denies queer readings of that text.

I have to think about this a bit more, but what struck me reading your comments is how I tend to enjoy a lot of het written by slashers more as well, b/c the slash potential is not foreclosed in the same way I see it in non-slash writers a lot...

The other thought I had was smarm, b/c in a way what you're describing (and I think you're totally right) is the exact opposite of smarm. Rather than vehemently protesting the sexual dimension of their bond, they simply keep it open.

There were some writers who used to do that (Merry's TS stuff comes to mind or Martha's wonderful SGA series) where the sex simply wasn't the center...and, in a way, it almost made the story stronger for that. Yes, you're missing out on the hot sex, but the ambiguity you get in return is kind of satisfying in its own right, isn't it?

I wonder whether this occurs more in SPN b/c of the incest issue (i.e., you both can get away with more physical intimacy and you have the inbuilt objections right there?)

I have to think about this a bit more, but what struck me reading your comments is how I tend to enjoy a lot of het written by slashers more as well, b/c the slash potential is not foreclosed in the same way I see it in non-slash writers a lot...

I find this interesting . . . is it because you read the story differently knowing what you do about the authors, or is there some difference in the formal characteristics of the texts?

I think it's a question of "Which possibility, when?" Because I think it's perfectly possible to say, "In this story, Characters D and E are madly in love and banging like bunnies at every opportunity whereas Characters F and G have loving feelings for each other that are not sexual and Characters H and I really need to buy a vowel." And, for that matter, for the same writer's next story about D and E to have them as very good friends who are not sexually attracted at all.

I know I've read about the negative impact of popular Freudianism in the 1920s and after on lots of happy Boston Marriages (where the participants had to start thinking of themselves as at least potential lesbians) but even if it's uncomfortable for fictional characters to think through the implications of their feelings and actions, I think it's better for the poor darlings to stop deluding themselves....

You know, this is a really interesting problem, and one that I have all the time when determining the labeling of my fanfiction. I'd say that about 80% or more of the fanfiction I write is genfic with homoerotic subtext. Being active in the slash community of my main fandom (or the the one I write the most fic in), I am always unsure of how to label it. On one hand, my perspective as I'm writing is coming from someone involved in a slash-centric community, and someone who writes actual slash between the same characters who are central to my genfic, and I feel that when gen fans read my work, it is tainted by that in some way. They feel that the subtext is too strong for it to be labeled strictly "gen." On the other hand, readers in my slash community I think feel cheated by the lack of actual slash in my stories, and sometimes have problems if I label them with a pairing. As a result, my stories tend to get labeled pretty arbitrarily, and I often change my labeling depending on how connected I'm feeling to my slash community at the time. Sometimes I get so tangled up in the question of whether or not my story has a pairing, that I end up abandoning it altogether.

I guess my opinion is that sometimes labels are unhelpful, and actually can end up placing unnatural restraints on fanfiction writers who feel they have to write within the boundaries they create. I often wish that fandom was not so dependent on these labels.

I suspect that this problem is precisely why the convention has evolved of giving both a pairing and a rating; someone who has a Him/That Guy or likes the Him/That Guy pairing will have different expectations from Him-That Guy (G), Him/That Guy (PG-13) and Him/That Guy (NC-17, heavy BDSM).

I suspect you're right, though that can be problematic as well, since sexual content is not the only thing that can bring a rating up. Now sometimes, in those cases, I've said something like "PG-13 for violence" but I think that still leaves some ambiguity in the mix, which people are not always okay with.

labels can indeed be a real problem. i'm never sure whether i should label a "harmless" story as slash, because when i wrote it i had a slashy backstory for my characters in mind and thus see my story as an excerpt from their lives in which they do fuck at some point, or if i should label it as gen, because in the actual story there's no actual slash as in man-on-man action. sometimes i think a comprehensive or well-worded summary may convey a lot more of what the story is about than listing only a quick pairing and rating.

in the context of naming pairings: for me, if character A is madly in love with character B, without B ever returning or even knowing about the feelings of A, i'll label my fic A/B with sometimes an additional comment that the love is one-sided.

labels can be a good way of quickly getting an idea of what a story is about, but i think it's sad they've come to replace good summaries, which i usually favor, especially in long stories. (granted, a summary for a 700 words story often feels a bit superfluous. however, if i'm in for a ten thousand word epic, i'd like to know at least the premise of the fic.)

I think slash fandom can be pretty tricky because there seem to be so many different ideas about what constitutes slash. Summaries can be tricky too, or maybe I just think that because I'm no good at writing them. :)

I'd say that about 80% or more of the fanfiction I write is genfic with homoerotic subtext. [...] As a result, my stories tend to get labeled pretty arbitrarily, and I often change my labeling depending on how connected I'm feeling to my slash community at the time. [...] I guess my opinion is that sometimes labels are unhelpful, and actually can end up placing unnatural restraints on fanfiction writers who feel they have to write within the boundaries they create.

As someone who writes the same way and has experienced similar feelings of arbitrariness at having to slot my fic into one category or another, I wondered in a recent post whether there might be a less restrictive label to apply to subtexty stories on the gen/slash borderline, and was quite charmed by

lydiabell's suggestion of BYOG (Bring Your Own Goggles) (http://nindulgence.livejournal.com/40037.html?thread=212581#t212581).

~

I would rather label everything I write as "fiction."

I agree.

I don't think it's a problem. The whole point of subtext is that it's inferred from the existing text. If someone tells me that she's a lesbian, I can possibly infer from her behavior that she slides on the (outdated) Kinsey scale.

Likewise, assuming that a label on fanfic can excise any imaginative treatment of the story on the behalf of readers doesn't give some readers enough credit.

In regards to the show, since slash writers draw their inspiration from the text, writing explicitly queer stories about it does not mean that the subtextual elements are denied in some way. It's an expansion rather than a reading that shouts that it is against the grain of the narrative, and since fanfiction takes place in a non-capitalist arena, it's a condemnation of market elements present in commercial texts that prevent explicit queer elements from showing rather than a statement that "this doesn't exist on the show."

the text itself has such a strong subtext and text of emotional and physical intimacy

This is indeed very interesting. I'm never sure how I should label fic with a very strong subtext (A-B? A/B?), particularly when the canon text is so subtexty anyway. I mean, if I was required to label a particularly slashy episode of Supernatural, I would err on the side of caution and would probably call it as Sam&Dean, with possible Sam/Dean, and rate it for both violence and Wincest. So when I label my own fic - fic that plays up that possible, I can't help but do the same. Even if there's no actual, written sex. Even if it's just some slamming against walls or some Winchester-style snuggling (involving lots of blood and stuff).

However, that "err on the side of caution" also worries me. It worries me because I keep asking myself, If this was het, would I rate it so high? If this wasn't incesty, would I label it this way? It worries me because I find myself almost censoring my fic through a rating.

If ratings/pairings are a way of letting the potential audience know what the writer believes is going on, (again, being cautious) I would rather rate the fic a little higher, and 'warn' a potential reader that there is 'possible Wincest' then get flamed (because that? really sucks). I guess self-rating also works as a situating device for an author - if you don't label a fic as having a possible pairing, then sometimes the audience you want to look at your fic (a slash reader) won't bother reading it (even though we don't want it to be true, it's what happens). Then again, I will read Wincest into the most gen of stories, because I'm a reader and that's what readers do, they draw their own meanings from the text (canon or fan).

[With all that in mind, I rate this comment NC-17 FOR WINCESTY IDEAS. NO SEX]

Hah. I write both slash and gen for Life on Mars, and a lot of my gen tends to have SUBTEXT coming out the wazoo. The non-slashers like it, the slashers like it - it's a win/win situation. I did recently refer to a story as "not actually being slash" and it was amusing to see how many comments reflected the "this was slashier than I thought it might be" sentiment. It made me wonder what the comments would have been if I hadn't mentioned slash at all. That reclassification issue is certainly one I find interesting.

As a term, I'm not overly fond of pre-slash, but it differs from subtext in that the sense is very much that these characters will get it together and get it on - which is a direct constrast of subtext - which suggests that canonically nothing is going to happen - it's just operating on that sub-surface level.

[here via metafandom]

Well, as I like to say, "The only difference between gen and pre-slash is authorial intent."

For a gen Trek (Voyager, LowerDecks, post-Endgame project) story I wrote once, I got one of my favourite ever pieces of feedback, along the lines of: "Loved the slashiness between characters X and Y".

My reaction was "slashiness? *rereads* Oh, right, slashiness! Cool!"

So in that instance the subtext was completely subconcious - but appreciated by at least one reader...

*here via metafandom*

I'm one of those multifandom types and one thing I find fascinating is how different fandoms label fics. Most are tending now towards labels/warnings for everything so that, as you note, gen fic with the slightest slash subtext gets a warning. It's something I personally really dislike. The only fandom I know that's stayed away from it so far is Girls Own, specifically the Chalet School fandom. Perhaps it's because it's very message board based (or my corner of it is) but we very rarely end up with warnings for anything unless it's going to be very triggery for people. It does leave a lot more space for subtext to play the same role as it does in the actual books.

*stops rambling*

AS someone who comes to fandom through a love of subtext it makes me sad that we tend to label ourselves so effectively subtext becomes text in our stories.

I think it's one of the potential drawbacks of slash that its very existence to an extent denies the possibility of homoerotic subtext in gen stories.

Not necessarily. I've found that gen fic writer by slashers is often at least mildly slashy, and I've deliberately attempted to write homoerotic gen on at least a couple of occasions (ex: Three Musketeers fic, because d'Artagnan has a massive, hero worshiping crush on Athos in canon, and it's a 19th century novel, so subtext is just automatically there). And then there's the Starky & Hutch fandom, where the only obvious difference between the slash and the gen is the lack of sex scenes in the latter. I know there are S&H gen writers who strongly believe that the guys aren't sleeping with each other and don't want to, but their stuff reads pretty much exactly like the slash anyway.

I agree that there is sometimes subtext in genfic - and that, at least for me, the fact that I've been writing more slash lately seems to bring out the subtext. I'm in the Star Wars fandom, and our main board has a very strict No Slash Especially With Canon Characters rule (it's actually more complicated, but the gist is "no slash"). I was able to post a genfic there, and it definitely has some subtext. Nothing strong enough to get me booted, but enough to find if one looks for it. It's so easy to add a little subtext to gen stories, and before, it might not have been.

Maybe it's because I started with a slashy plotbunny and made it gen instead of the other way around.

Maybe it's because I started with a slashy plotbunny and made it gen instead of the other way around

That couldn't hurt ^_^. I know that back in the day when I wrote HP fic, I used to have to go over every chaper of my long gen/het fic with a fine-toothed comb, trying to keep Sirius/Remus subtext from creeping in. Re-reading it now, I wasn't as sucessful as I assumed at the time (I also wasn't as good a writer as I assumed, but that's neither here nor there). Because I shipped S/R so hard, they were always in love with one another in my head, even when I tried to write their interactions as platonic.

Here from

metafandom.

After four years in the slash community, I'm still trying to figure out what "subtext" means. :)

Does it mean homoeroticism that isn't there in the original, but which, with a little tweaking, could be seen to be there? Or does it mean that the homoeroticism is really there, and the canon writers are just in denial? (Or possibly just teasing the viewers or readers.)

I've seen the term subtext used both ways, and I find that a bit frustrating because I can't tell whether a slasher is saying, "I know better than the creator what this show means" (which, I say as an author, can happen) or, "This show doesn't show homoeroticism, but darn it, wouldn't it be fun to imagine that it did?"

It seems to me that all fanfic, by its very nature, draws upon subtext in either of these senses. If I imagine a gen scene taking place that didn't actually take place in the gen original, then I'm seeing subtext. And if I say, "No, no, no, Qui-Gon did not die, no matter what George Lucas thinks!" then I'm drawing upon subtext. Homoeroticism doesn't need to enter into the matter.

I do have some uneasiness about how frequently some slashers claim to see subtext in the sense of something that's there in the canon that creators weren't aware of. I write original gen and original slash, and a lot of my stories are about male romantic friendships. I don't in the least bit mind my readers slashing my characters in their minds - I keep hoping to read fanfic of my stories some day :) - but I don't see my romantic-friendship characters as being gay. I see them as engaging in behavior that our culture would consider to be evidence of erotic attraction, but which other cultures would regard as non-erotic behavior.

Not being a cultural imperialist, I don't assume that the other cultures are wrong. Indeed, having been in a romantic friendship myself, I believe that such relationships have the potential to be non-erotic. So I get a little edgy about those slash readers who appear to me to be projecting their own cultural preconceptions of what is evidence of erotic attraction onto other people's characters. I'd much rather, in such cases, that those readers just admit that they like imagining the characters as homoerotic, regardless as to whether the characters actually were homoerotic in the original.

After all, there's nothing wrong with re-imagining a creation into a different form.

Does it mean homoeroticism that isn't there in the original, but which, with a little tweaking, could be seen to be there? Or does it mean that the homoeroticism is really there, and the canon writers are just in denial?

In general, I think it's when the fine line between those two options has become so fine that you aren't sure which side you are standing on anymore.

In part the issue is that what "is" or "isn't there in the original" is such a fluid thing, a floating signifier....

I know it's been (yikes!) nearly a year since this was posted, but I found it an interesting question. As a het and gen writer, I find myself playing with some of the issues you discuss here, minus the queering. I do write fic about interaction between female and male characters which isn't explicitly romantic or sexual, but could be seen (and usually is by me as I'm writing it) as having that potential. As one of the commentators said, I label it quite arbitrarily: Character name1, Character name 2 CN1/CN2 implied maybe. I'm not sure if that's aimed at the shippers or just my own issues with the header system. But yes, dealing with subtext in fanfic, when so much of fanfic is about making subtext text (and like another commentator also said, it isn't always about homoeroticism/queer reading) is tricky water to navigate.

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