Shane Little wrote:

Me and my militant army of slash-eating penguins, that's who.

Ah. Well, you and the penguins are welcome to read all the socio-politico-type stories you can get your hands & flippers on.

Because you're missing out on a whole range of experience, that's why.

I'm missing out on a whole range of experience by not eating fried okra and stewed slugs, too. There are experiences my life is definitely richer without. And when I'm reading fanfic, I am reading for enjoyment -- why should I read stuff that doesn't interest me?

In my case, the fact that I read slash doesn't mean I don't read anything else. (Fanfic itself is a very small proportion of my reading, and I read both gen and slash if I come across something to my taste.) But even if it did -- and I know people who won't read any fanfic other than slash -- what of it? People aren't obligated to read what they don't like simply because you think they ought to have the "experience". Nor are they likely to derive much benefit from an experience consisting primarily of boredom.

Oh, no one, I'm just expressing an opinion. No law against that as far as I know. Yet.

I see.

So why exactly did you think Blake and Co. were on the run?

*Why* they were on the run was largely immaterial to me. I don't regard it as a major focus of the show; any of a variety of excuses would have done.

Well, what is it about for you then?

The interrelationships between the characters. (Neil, just hit the delete key now, OK?) Principally Blake and Avon, from my point of view, with peripheral interest from the others. The whole fighting-the-Federation business is, as far as I'm concerned, just there to give them an excuse to bicker, and get into situations, and get each other out of situations, and generally demonstrate the character dynamics, which are what I'm watching for. I'm quite indifferent to the political setup apart from that; it's sort of an environmental McGuffin for me.

I'm not too keen on PWP either, but if a slash story does have a serious message I say well done.

I'm not too keen on PWP in general, myself, though there are exceptions --some humorous stories with good dialogue can be quite diverting. A story which is just a sex scene I'll usually pass by, since sex per se is something I don't find terribly interesting. But in any case, this is a matter of my personal taste; it has absolutely no bearing on what anyone else should or should not enjoy. Likewise, I couldn't care less about the presence of a "serious message", any more than I would in any other fiction I read. In fanfic, I'm reading for the characters and the interactions between them, and how their relationships might develop. And I'm doing it for recreation, not to be preached at.

No, it isn't the target audience, it's true. But it does bug me to think of a distorted version of my lifestyle turned into somebody else's fantasy

Life is rough. You don't have jurisdiction over anyone else's fantasies, though if someone starts writing and distributing slash about *you*, I'd say you have some grounds for complaint. As it stands, I doubt whether anyone writing slash -- especially B7 slash -- is writing about *your* lifestyle at all, distorted or otherwise. If you don't find the stories believable, don't read 'em. No one says you have to. Heck, there are plenty of them that I don't find believable either, at various levels ranging from "This character wouldn't act like that," to "Men don't act like that," all the way through "No remotely sentient creature would act like that."

If you want to read this sort of slash as a fantasy, fair enough-- but it doesn't have much to do either with gay lifestyles _or_ with the programme itself.

Most slash is concerned with the relationship between two, very specific, characters, not with "lifestyles", gay or otherwise. And it has just as much -- and just as little -- to do with the programme as any other fanfic which goes beyond a bald recitation of canon and includes anything of the author's own extrapolation. Whether that extrapolation is compatible with the reader's view of the characters and the show is up to the reader and writer concerned and will vary radically from one person to the next. If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't, and there is nothing wrong with that. Your views just don't mesh well enough for you to buy into the author's vision. But that doesn't mean she shouldn't write it; what clashed horribly for you may work perfectly for someone else. Nor is one of you "right" and the other "wrong". Just move on to other authors whose stories are more suited to your taste. And if it bothers you terribly that people aren't going to restrict themselves to only material of which you, personally, approve -- well, as I said, life is rough. You'll just have to get used to being bothered.

- Lisa

-- Lisa Williams: lcw@dallas.net or lwilliams@raytheon.com Lisa's Video Frame Capture Library: http://framecaplib.com/ From Eroica With Love: http://eroicafans.org/

In message IICCMFNLLDCBNAAA@angelfire.com, Shane Little littles@angelfire.com writes

...

There's certainly a fair bit of PWP around -- why shouldn't there be, if there are people who enjoy writing and reading it? -- but it's a far cry from "most".

I want stats!

Where's Sarah when you need her... Admittedly, Sarah's bibliography doesn't give you the divide between PWP and non-PWP, but it does give you the relative proportions between gen, het and slash - and slash isn't the overwhelming force taking over fandom that some of the anti camp like to portray. We could probably have enormous "eye of the beholder" fun going through the biblio and assigning smut stories as PWP or not PWP:-)

A version of the bibliography can be found online at Judith's site at http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7/Fanzines/index.html#Indexes and I would like to thank Shane for giving me this excuse to ask people to write more reviews. Long reviews, short reviews, reviews of the zine or reviews of just one story, Judith wants reviews...