request and a rambling discussion

[permetaform]

Does anyone know of where I might find any combination of Spike/Jet/Faye or Spike/Jet? Cowboy Bebop yaoi is freaking rare, and I'm wondering why that is, because the pairings just seems incredibly obvious because actions and dialogue are freaking *random* otherwise.

Is it *because* it's obvious or is it because Jet is not conventionally attractive?

It's a bit odd to me and a bit distressing that it seems that so much is hinged on the attractiveness factor. I'm pretty sure that's part of the reason why Legolas/Gimli is freaking rare compared to the other combinations (and I saw this pairing in the movie despite not having read the books, though I didn't see the Legolas/Aragorn until someone pointed it out). I'm also pretty sure that's why Londo/G'Kar is nearly non-existent which is an awful and tragic thing.

However, knowing that at least part of the whole deal with slash is the 'yay!pr0n!' aspect of it, it's understandable.

Interestingly enough, there's plenty of Snapeslash, despite how he's described as rather ...less than charming... in the books. It's facinating to note the evolution of Snape's appearence, the permutations of his descriptive words, and the near sexualization of ugliness.

Of course one can't discount that appearances are all the in eye of the beholder and it's all relative and such.

But: Snape is not attractive, conventionally; he has sallow skin, a hook nose, and greasy hair and none of these are descriptors used in conveying beauty.

Nevertheless, force of will (both the reader's and Snape's) has rendered him compelling. Ugliness is tranmuted and reformed into something to be admired. Or perhaps even that admiration exists for a qualities which seem to be 'overlooked' conventionally.

Or, and here's a flip-side that'll probably give the rest of you heart attacks to hear me say, but I didn't find Sands 'attractive' for most of the film. The 'pork' scene highlighted the flat qualities of his face and his character was pretty much an ass.

And oh, what an ass he is, compellingly ugly souled, horrendously garbed, petty and over cocky as he counts on ability that he didn't seem to have.

And yet.

And yet, he survived. He still stood, and he showed some scrap of a possibility of redemption with the boy... and my eyes are drawn to him helplessly, ugliness and all.

Yet another example?

Johnny Depp has a slightly asymmetrical face; his nose tilts towards the left. Yet I find myself thinking of it as a 'quirk' and 'eccentricity', despite the fact that for all intents and purposes it's a flaw. But it's a compelling flaw, a lovable flaw perhaps *because* it's a flaw (and how's *that* for a sexualization of ugliness?) but also because it's *him*. And my adoration of Johnny Depp renders this flaw forgivable and loveable, as it is part and parcel with his face as a whole.

(And isn't this simply love? Where flaws are smoothed away, overshadowed, ignored, sexualized, or adored?)

Perhaps this is why Snapefic is so common despite the book's descriptives, we as readers have collectly fallen in love with him and there never was a *visual* aspect to deter us from the beginning. Where in movies and anime there is the appearance first and the situation second and the personality last, in books (good ones) appearance and situation and personality are inseperable and it is *that* much easier for personality and situation to negate the effects of an ugly appearance...

::tilts head and ponders some more:: dunno...your opinions?

Comments

[ponderosa121.livejournal.com]

Lord knows I try writing it, but I've never actually read much in the way of Bebop fics. Still, I've looked a few tims and only come across Jet/Spike in doujinshi form. Even that is painfully rare, and I only really know of one circle that draws it in non-gag style. :/

I think you're spot on with the whole appearance first, personality last sort of thing in terms of visuals vs. text. I know I used to have that problem myself when I first got into fandom. :p

[permetaform]

Even that is painfully rare, and I only really know of one circle that draws it in non-gag style. :/

::pouty:: tho...which circle?? ::intensly curious::

as for the appearance vs. text I think I first reconciled that through the Londo/G'kar. I loved the characters and the character themes too much and my brain started slashing them to my utter dismay and to much facemashing. (Then I got over it and started looking for fic and then screamed at the injustice of finding barely any. boo...)

[dreamiflame.livejournal.com]

Legolas/Gimli is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Sadly, I have only seen about two episodes and those were so long ago that I can no longer remember enough Cowboy Bebop to help rectify the slash-lack or even discuss it properly. And also, I should really, really go to bed now. So.

Night. *bows and runs off*

[linaelyn.livejournal.com]

Sex is best when there is love. Porn is fake sex. Fake sex is still fun, mind you, but it's still a bit...fake.

Sexual Fanfiction can be either love-based or non-love based. (Love meaning a self-sacrificial relationship between the characters, a deep emotional connection between them.) One is what I call porn, the other is what I call erotica. These are my own uses for the terms, and others are likely to hold very differing definitions.

Some of what I like to read is porn; some of what I like is erotica. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Neither can hold a patch to the real thing. Love isn't blind, it's kind. *My* darling is more beautiful than 100 Johhny Depps.

I totally get the Legolas/Gimli thing. It's there in the books, and I have always know they were meant for each other.

I never noticed that about Johnny's nose. But if you're arguing his face is somehow flawed, a little defective...um. No. Absolute symmetry does not equal beauty. That's a machine, not an organic thing. JD is among the prettiest on the planet, no question. I mean that's by far NOT the important thing about him, and all, but let's not be kidding ourselves here.

[permetaform]

I never noticed that about Johnny's nose.

Yeah, I didn't either until someone pointed it out with that one faceshot of his with a bit of eyeliner that I was going in raptures over a while back. Thing is, I'm not sure I can trust my own opinion on the matter. Technically, we are hard-wired to be more attracted to the symmetrical face and beauty, as a subjective quality, might be weighed by that quality, and there is beauty in machines as well. But I find myself liking the eccentricities and I know that's partly due to me being contrary and finding something to love in the midst of a possible 'flaw'...

...but then again we get in the 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' concept...

[kandykorn.livejournal.com]

I've never even thought on Spike/Jet. o_O I've never had the notion to pair up any of the Bebop charaters. Or to write anything at all gen, slash, or het about Bebop.
And knowing me, that's odd.

I wonder how much of Snape's fanon appearance and attractiveness is influenced by the casting of Alan Rickman.
He's very unconventionally sexy. Infact one could say more so than book!Snape.

[permetaform]

Or to write anything at all gen, slash, or het about Bebop.

what I find absolutely fabulous about Cowboy Bebop is that it's *such* a well-developed world. personally I find myself not wanting to detract from that by writing fiction for it, is it the same way for you?

I wonder how much of Snape's fanon appearance and attractiveness is influenced by the casting of Alan Rickman.

perhaps. I know that Alan Rickman has a pretty solid fanbase, but I personally never was much attracted to him. His characters yes, the actor himself not so much, which is perhaps a testiment to the strength of his art.

[harukami]

I think most people ignore how he looks in the movie and define him, in their head, as some kind of gorgeous bishounen. That's one of the things about books - people often ignore the description given and imagine them how they WANT to. Like, Aziraphale in Good Omens is middle age and overweight, but the fans tend to write him as long-haired and beautiful in his youth.

It's crazy.

[permetaform]

people often ignore the description given and imagine them how they WANT to.

yes! most definately, and I find myself doing that sometimes too. I wonder how much of it is wanting to map on what we wish to see and how much is the distorted perception induced through an attachment to the character...

...which in some ways might be taken as the *exact* same thing. =p gah, I really need to take some logic lessons methinks...

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

My impression of Cowboy Bebop is that it's a largely fanboy-dominated fandom (and yet I've had fanboy friends rant at length about the wrongness of CB slash).

Regarding otherwise -- I've always had a thing for emotionally and physically crippled characters. Something about repression and suffering; I don't know. But I was madly in love with Erik from The Phantom of the Opera when I was younger, before I had my own stalker and my views of the book changed -- but there's a whole fandom built on, I don't know. An act of redemption, the idea of what might have been, maybe, because it's not like Erik was a really nice guy even prior to becoming obsessed with Christine, and he's definitely not good-looking.

I actually find overly 'beautiful,' symmetrical people offputting. I never found Johnny Depp attractive before PotC because he was too pretty, too perfect-looking -- and I still find him attractive almost exclusively when he's Jack, scarred and unwashed and dreadlocked and kind of daft.

I've always felt sort of like an anomaly, because so many of my high school friends liked the conventional, whichever star of the moment is popular with screaming teenies. I find more character in interesting faces; perhaps it's because I spent so much time drawing, and it's much more challenging to draw plain, or ugly, or kind of weird-looking, than Conventionally Pretty.

Dunno.

But I do think that's to some extent true of book fandoms -- expect that, as someone pointed out, the appearance-oriented people will often prettify the characters in their mind. I will never understand all the fanart of Aziraphale as a bishounen, myself.

[permetaform]

it's a largely fanboy-dominated fandom

ahhh. makes sense. I think some anime pimping is in order then...

I've always had a thing for emotionally and physically crippled characters.

Yeah, but what's kinda funny is that I'm more attracted to 'power' and, through that, the concept of strength. Perhaps it's because the strength (in all the best stories) is balanced and enhanced by the weaknesses? Ranma (from Ranma 1/2) is so incredibly defined by his strength (to be a man, to be the best fighter, etc.) but is facinating because of his utter cluenessness emotionally.

And I agree with you about feeling like the anomaly, I never got what the appeal was and it was only Jack Sparrow that had me desperately hunting down an actor. Thing with Johnny Depp tho, is that I still find his face disturbingly flat in certain angles and a bit 'boxy' structurally. And I love the man still, beyond these factors.

As for the book fandom, it could be argued that Aziraphale *is* a bishounen (in it's emotional context, rather than it's literal), but only subjectively. Any artistic rendering is grounds for any number of subjective concepts about the *bishonen* to clash with each other. Technically, Aziraphale *isn't* a bishonen, his is not young, he is not exceptionally pretty. But in the minds of the artists of a certain genre Aziraphale fits in the emotional slot of bishonen (as a well-loved character) and thus is rendered bish on paper.

To some extent, I view the bishonen fanart of Aziraphale as how he looks and feels in Crowley's mind. (::waves C/A flag::) It's how he would look to someone who loves him.

[strawberrythief.livejournal.com]

"Or, and here's a flip-side that'll probably give the rest of you heart attacks to hear me say, but I didn't find Sands 'attractive' for most of the film. The 'pork' scene highlighted the flat qualities of his face and his character was pretty much an ass."

Plus he spends much of it wearing horribly ugly outfits, hats and fake mustaches. One of the things I like about the character of Sands is that he shows off one of Johnny Depp's best qualities as an actor; like Laurence Olivier, Johnny isn't afraid to look ugly (or, what's even more scary than "ugly" for a leading man, ordinarily unattractive.)

"And oh, what an ass he is, compellingly ugly souled, horrendously garbed, petty and over cocky as he counts on ability that he didn't seem to have."

Yes! That's pretty much my idea of the character nailed, right there. It's interesting to me how different that is from the developing fanon perceptions of him (the killer angel and/or the master-assassin victim of his own insanity.)

I mean, when Sands is strutting around saying, "I throw shapes," my first reaction is, "But you're really not very good at it, are you? I mean, this Clever Plan™ of yours relies almost entirely on coincidence and timing and has holes in it big enough to throw a fucking moose through, doesn't it?" And he's a master manipulator? Please. That scene in the restaurant with Jorge Ramirez? He might as well have been hitting Ramirez with a brick. I've seen third-graders work emotions with more subtlety than that. Ajedrez is laughing, in the restaurant scene, over how unbelievably easy it was to fool Sands. He works for the Central Intelligence Agency and he doesn't even do enough basic homework on a key contact to know who her father is?! Even at the end, when you can't help but admire his unsinkable spirit, he's still not admirable in any other way. After all, why's he going to the town hall in Culiacan? To try to save the President? To help El? Nope. He tells Chiclet what he's after; "Take me to the center of the city, where there will be even more dough." He's going after the money. Sands is still just bullheadedly riding out the tattered remnants of his stupid blown-apart plan, like Sparrow in that sinking dinghy, to the last.

And yet for all his overconfidence and incompetence and toad-like personality, Sands really is fascinating, even likeable, and I'm still having fun parsing out all of the reasons for that.

Um, sorry. That got really long.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

And yet for all his overconfidence and incompetence and toad-like personality, Sands really is fascinating, even likeable, and I'm still having fun parsing out all of the reasons for that.

Thank you for setting off a very useful train of thought. I was trying to figure out why my El is putting up with some of the more exasperating things Sands has been/will be doing in the current story and it partly boiled down to him having heard all those stories Sands told him when they were back at the Very Nice Hacienda. He *knows* that the things Sands got away with before Culican were down to luck at least as much as judgment and he's got this sort of morbid fascination with the whole thing.

Gina

[winter]

It's interesting that before the movies - I was quite a bit into the fandom at the time, passive-wise, and I should know - Snapeslash qualified automatically as a Rare pairing. Honestly. It's all Alan Rickman's fault - you can talk about sadism and ugliness all you want, if you wrap it up in a Rickman-shaped package and let him talk with that sarcasm-velvet thing he has going, people are going to drool. A lot.

And hey, Sands before the eye thing was, well, standard psycho, somewhat endearing in how inept he was at the business at times. It's after that matters ^_^ And props to JD for making that transformation.

As for Johnny's face, I've read somewhere that absolute symmetric perfection in a person tends to weird people out. Some little kind of assymetry is actually preferred to set off the face - that's why beauty marks used to be en vogue. You see someone perfect and the automatic reaction is "too good to be true". If there's something that offsets the beauty, the overall effect is much stronger. One of the girls considered the prettiest in my highschool had a small scar next to her mouth - small but noticeable, something which set off the fragility of her features. Same principle.

[latxcvi.livejournal.com]

As for Johnny's face, I've read somewhere that absolute symmetric perfection in a person tends to weird people out. Some little kind of assymetry is actually preferred to set off the face - that's why beauty marks used to be en vogue.

I've read this and I've also read the opposite - that facial symmetry draws the human eye. Just based on personal experience and watching the way other people react to the physical beauty of actors/celebrities, I tend to think the *former* statement is the more true: Physical perfection, of which absolute symmetry would be one example, tends to freak people out. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard people say some variation of "So and so doesn't really do it for me because s/he is too perfect in their prettiness" I'd have a *lot* of nickels *g*.

glad you linked this! part 1

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Very interesting thoughts.

Is it *because* it's obvious or is it because Jet is not conventionally attractive?

I always thought Jet was attractive in that "If I were an older woman" sort of way. In canon, he's only 9 years older than Spike, but yet Jet has somehow moved into that category of "older guys that this 19-year-old is too young to have a crush on." Mind you, there are actors in Hollywood who are older than 36 ::coughDavidDuchovny::cough::whoisn'tconventionallyattractiveeither::cough:: that I crushed on at an even younger age. But Jet just moved into "old" for me. I think it's the scar, the wolverine beard, and the metal arm. Though he's often really not angry or mean (actually he's the nicest person on Bebop), Jet looks fierce. And I guess I still look at that as "I'd have to all adult to be involved with him, because he's all scary despite being nice bodied."


I know what you mean about Sands... I didn't think he was attractive for the first half of the movie. Particularly not when he was watching the bullfight. His wardrobe was terrible (funny though.) And he does have, for the most part, a revolting soul. You'd the CIA would have psych tests for prospective agents.

But somewhere between "Are you trying to give me a boner?" And the scene where he stands, alone, shooting by sound at the fool that dares to laugh at him as if he couldn't hurt them anymore, as if he were somehow less than The Impenetrable Agent Sands because he's suffered a loss that would destroy most people. And of course, The Boy. I loved him and The Boy. The Boy and Sands should make buddy movies. Ok... not really. Better, they should make cameos together in every movie ever made from now on that's not set in Middle Earth.

On another note, I love G'Kar. I think he was patterned after President Jefferson, or something. Someone with an amazing political brain and iron will. But no, I don't find him attractive at all. Then again, he's supposed to be an alien, and not attractive to humans. Although, I find Londo even less attractive, and he's more "human" looking.

Where in movies and anime there is the appearance first and the situation second and the personality last, in books (good ones) appearance and situation and personality are inseperable and it is *that* much easier for personality and situation to negate the effects of an ugly appearance...

Very interesting theory! It makes a lot of sense, and could explain the Snape thing, which remains a mystery to me.

Re: glad you linked this! part 2

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

My personal Bebop ship is Spike/Faye. Because I usually prefer het, and, well, I have Buffy/Spike issues and I was transferring. CB was like watching Season3 Buffy running off to die with Season5 Angel while Season6 William the Bloody can't do anything to stop it and has to watch her go. Most of the fic is crap, though. But I did make a list, once, of Every CB fic I've found so far that's actually worth your valuable time... basically the medium ones and the great ones... all fic, but with the really bad ones left out. I'm going to update it sometime soon with a dozen or so new fics I found.


From another comment:
what I find absolutely fabulous about Cowboy Bebop is that it's *such* a well-developed world. personally I find myself not wanting to detract from that by writing fiction for it, is it the same way for you?

I have that reaction to Farscape. I'm so in love with it as it is, that I'm terrified that fanfic could only ruin it for me. I've read a few, but less than a dozen overall. For CB... I've read a lot, and like about 1/7th of what I read, sometimes less. But there's some truly great fanfic out there, if you look hard. And it is a largely fanboy dominated fandom, as many have said. The best fics I've read have been separated mostly (but not always) into two categories: Action & Relationship &/or Friendship Fics, written by females; Action &/or Friendship fics, written by males. There was one glaring exception, with one of my alltime favorite Spike/Faye relationship (not action at all) fics being written by someone I'm 97% sure is a guy. But for the most part the guys seem to either tackle only Spike's tragic love for Julia and only talk about his side of it without actually writing Julia, or not talk about romantic relationships at all. Of the m/m slash fics I have read, it's typically been Spike/Vicious. Which makes more sense to me, actually, than Spike/Jet, with the history we're given.

[billradish.livejournal.com]

Another aspect to Snape, in particular, is the fact that he's redeemable. In the Harry Potter books, there's a very definite trend (at the beginning at least...I still haven't read the fifth book, but what I skimmed seemed to indicate they were possibly moving beyond this) that people are either good or bad. Hagrid, Dumbledoor and pretty much every Gryffindor were considered and described as good from the very start. They might not have been gorgeous, but they were good. Slytherins and Voldemort were generally considered bad and, save for Draco, were described as not only bad but ugly and vile. Snape was, from Harry's perspective, basically bad. But from a reader's perspective it's a lot easier to see where he's good too. And while his description is ugly, it's a redeemable ugly. If he washed, if he dressed better...that eliminates the greasy hair and does a load of good for the sallow skin. The hooked nose people can and do consider attractive anyway. ^^;

Fandom is occasionally very big on redemption. Look at what they like to do to Draco Malfoy...he just needs a personality overhaul in order to emerge as 'good', but damn...what an overhaul. o.O It's easier to see realistically with Snape, because the foundation is already laid down.

And also...while Snape might be described as disgusting, very few of the characters were described as typically 'beautiful' and usually only when there was reason for them to be considered so.

...laaa~ah. I think I got side tracked.

[cleverthylacine]

Except for the part about how Dumbledore doesn't really act good, for all that we're told over and over how good we're supposed to think he is. I'm so completely unimpressed with his goodness. He's either not all that good, or not all that competent.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

natlyn is the person on my Friends List who instantly springs to mind when you mention Cowboy Bebop.

As for The Pretty, that came up at Connotations when we discussed the differences between LitSlash and Visual Media Slash. I think we decided that the rise of SnapeSlash is all about Alan Rickman.

I don't write pairings (or moresomes) based on The Pretty that much. I mean I want to convince myself that the characters will find each other attractive (there's an unwritten scene in my head in which Sands sits a hotel maid on his knee and flirts horrendously with her because he wants to know just how pretty his real lust interest is and he's determined to get her to tell him) but real attraction is based on far more than just static looks.

And certain of my OCs are definitely not pretty, but they have presence and self-confidence, which is far more important.

That any help?

Gina

[melusina]

Very interesting and thought provoking post (and subsequent discussion, although most of the anime references went right over my head).

Gimli vs. Snape is an interesting comparison, because I think they made Gimli *less* attractive in the movie, while Alan Rickman is *more* attractive than Snape as portrayed in the book. Also, as fanfic101 has pointed out, Rickman's gorgeous voice has become absolutely entwined with canon!Snape to the point that I can no longer imagine Snape without at least hearing Rickman's voice.

Gimli / Legolas seems almost text in the book, but book!Legolas is also less human than movie!Legolas. The elves in the movie are portrayed as exceptionally attractive (maybe a little standoffish) people (and the emphasis on Legolas' friendship with Aragorn seems to be part of this), where in the book there's more of a sense of them as an alien race. Somehow, that sense made Gimli / Legolas more plausible to me.

Londo / G'Kar, again, virtually canon. It almost seems like the reason there's not much fic dealing with their relationship is that it *is* so canonical. People rarely seem to be interested in writing canon 'ships. Although appearance is probably a factor as well. Also, a lot of the stories that were written during the run of B5 posit one or the other of them as a villain (G'Kar early on, and then Londo in later seasons).

(And isn't this simply love? Where flaws are smoothed away, overshadowed, ignored, sexualized, or adored?)

Yes! I wonder, is there a fanfic genre equivalent to the "mousy librarian transformed by love" cliche from movies? It seems like so much tv / movie based fic is already dealing with beautiful characters that there's not much room for that, and yet that cliche is incredibly powerful, and I'm wondering if that's part of the attraction to Snape slash.

Lots of things to think about - I'm going to pimp this discussion on my journal. . .

[zoerayne]

Yes! I wonder, is there a fanfic genre equivalent to the "mousy librarian transformed by love" cliche from movies?

I think this is a theme of fanfic in general, in a meta sense. I can't count the number of times I've been reading a story and have seen a character described in glowing, loving terms that are at odds with the visual reality. miriam_heddy wrote an essay (Bodie's Bodies for The Fanfic Symposium) on the phenomenon in Pros fandom, where the character of Bodie is described as having a hard body, while the actor is quite a bit softer and rounder.

I understand the potential reasons for it - the author thinks of the character that way, the author thinks the viewpoint character would think of the character that way, etc. - but it still irritates me sometimes. Though not as much as people who don't like characters/pairings because they're "ugly." Feh.

[d-r-o-n-e.livejournal.com]

I can't put in any commentary on Cowboy Bebop or Agent Sands/OUaTiM, having not seen either.

I think there are a few intrinsic problems with Londo/G'Kar.

One is Babylon 5 in general--the universe is so so intricately thought out and complete, i don't think it naturally lends itself well to fanfic for non-OC characters, personally. (This is not to say that ppl don't write it, I know.) To my mind, it's like Bas-Lag. As a writer, I would feel kind of weird writing serious fic in the universe, but maybe that's just me and what draws me to a fandom's fic potential. Though I could imagine a pile of humorous x-overs--Londo and G'Kar as Pintel and Ragetti is CLAMORING AT MY BRAIN, f'r'instance. :D

The other (and primary) problem that I could pose is, well, their junk. We know canonically that Londo's got six... prehensile somethings down there, and that G'Kar's race is a.) marsupial where b.) the men carry the pouchlings. (I wonder, when Londo used his Whatever You Call a Centauri Pecker to cheat at cards, was that the first alien wang to be seen on TV? & you'd think MPREGgers would be psyched about a canonical ooportunity to do their thing, and be writing Narnfic out the wingwang...but i digress.) Strazcynski's told his viewership rather a lot about how alien their genitals are without actually drawing any diagrams about how things work, and i think smut writers at the least find that really daunting.

I agree with what others have said about Rickman's casting having a huge influence over HP fic and the perception of Snape, particularly the "put on your porny-pants and slide down my enunciation" voice-thing and the "like Oscar Wilde, but skinnier!" nancy wry-but-woe-betidded black-clad passion-plate thing. (Aside: SAVE ME from "Snape goes to Muggle goth clubs in his spare time" fics, please?) Mind you, I'm down with that appeal, but it's IMO all an offshoot of his interpretation of the character. In fact, you could argue that there's a navigable split between people who write book!Snape and ppl who write film!Snape---blurry edges and overlap, of course. (Though, I think you can argue this with any fandom that has both a textual and cinematic aspect, I'd bet.)

However, I don't want to discount the appeal of an adult in a kid's-eye-view universe with a lot of empathy-points: You could read it that he dislikes his job. You could surmise he's short tempered with pubescent adolescents. He is the butt of a lot of jokes, both from students and staff. As early as book 3 you get hints that he had a shitty childhood and was pranked a lot from his schoolmates. I think a lot of ppl plug into those empathy points and want to write fic that explores them, &/or attempts to justify or redeem him as a result. In fact, I could probably write a scholarly thesis on this idea i have that, Snape fans (and Snape apologists) are the same people who empathize with Malvolio in Twelfth Night--both characters are smug, snide bastards with just a shard of something painful and raw that bleeds out just a little and affords others a foothold on making them a subject of ridicule, and both react to that sort of treatment with the same rage.

Eeep, gotta run, going to be late for work! Hope this isn't too disjointed to make sense.

[melusina]

In fact, I could probably write a scholarly thesis on this idea i have that, Snape fans (and Snape apologists) are the same people who empathize with Malvolio in Twelfth Night--both characters are smug, snide bastards with just a shard of something painful and raw that bleeds out just a little and affords others a foothold on making them a subject of ridicule, and both react to that sort of treatment with the same rage.

This is an interesting observation. The main difference for me, is that Malvolio is never (to my knowledge) seen as a sexually appealing figure, while Snape clearly is (at least by fans). Would this change if Rickman played Malvolio? Maybe, but I doubt it, because Shakespeare didn't write Malvolio with the same sympathy that Rowling has for Snape.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Cowboy Bebop yaoi is freaking rare, and I'm wondering why that is, because the pairings just seems incredibly obvious because actions and dialogue are freaking *random* otherwise.

Is it *because* it's obvious or is it because Jet is not conventionally attractive?

Stupid blind people! Blinder than a post-eye-gouging Sands! Not only are the slash vibes there, but I personally would pick Jet as the BeBop crewmember to have wild monkey sex with in a heart beat. Even over Faye. I could gladly spend a solid five-to-ten minutes watching Spike fight (um, either Spike--William the Bloody's fun to watch too--but especially BeBop Spike, whose Kung Fu sequences are almost unique in anime, and far less stylised than most anime fight scenes) but Jet is just so great. He's got that whole gruff-guy-with-a-heart-of-pure-gold (well, maybe 14-karat gold) thing going, plus, he's not as old as he looks (he says in one episode that he's thirty-six or something, after a long rant about how people always think bald guys are old).

And it may be transferrance from Trigun, but I think his arm is cool.

[maymorning.livejournal.com]

Now you know I'm not going to say anything half as profound or interesting as everyone else. But...

Funnily enough, I found Sands very attractive right from the first scene, precisely because he looked so grungy. I mean, he looked exausted and fed up right from that first scene. Funny, eh?! Same with Fred; I like him because he looks so neglected. Whereas Jack is cute but too 'together' to be really attractive. Guess it says a lot about me and how odd I am! :-)

Oh this attractiveness thing is silly really. We're force-fed an ideal by the bloody media and we're supposed to buy into it as if it matters. Look at the UK "Pop Idol", for example. (Well someone did, I certainly didn't watch it!) The winner this year is a girl who is, to be blunt, very big. The judges dismissed her because of her "image" but the public liked her enough to vote her to the winning spot. She has a good voice, that's what is really important. Not the way she looks. I suspect we're not as stupid and bovine as the media thinks we are.

JD is so atrractive simply because he is not supposed to be. Notice it's as he's got older that he's been more noticed. Despite the youth culture thing, it's an old fella that's the sexiest man around, not some barely teenaged boy with perfectly honed pecs.

Anyway, that's my tuppence ha'pennyworth.

[cleverthylacine]

Snapefic is one thing. Try being a Moody slasher. :D

I write them both (not together, and in Snape's case I tend to write het, but I do write them both). It's a lot easier to get people to read Snape fics.

[adjectivegirl.livejournal.com]

You are far braver than I.

[evyg.livejournal.com]

Snape is definetly all about Rickman - i recall reading the books again after having seen the movies, and being actually taken aback/startled at the portrayal of Snape. he's as vile, but his physical appearance is a lot nicer, and more intimidating, in the films. he's basically the essential James Bond villain: slightly disfigured, but not entirely unattractive (see: Sean Bean in GoldenEye).

as for Johnny's perfection, i'm with whomever quoted the "too perfect" phrase. Johnny is simply too pretty to be attractive to me; i enjoy him like i would a beautiful painting, a lovely piece of art, that i can just marvel at - but he's way too perfect to do anything for me. that's not to say i don't find certain of his characters attractive, but the less Johnny-like, the better (see: Edward, Sparrow).

as for Sands' plainness/attractiveness, i didn't find him attractive at all (but neither did i find him UNattractive - the thought just never entered my mind). he's an intriguing character, and i was impressed at how they managed to make him look so plain and ordinary in some of those hacienda shots, but he has neither the physical or emotional allure of, say, El, whom i adore to pieces in all his brooding angstiness.

the loss of Sands' eyes makes him lose some of that cocky edge, thus rendering him more helpless and endearing, and i think that's why most people tend to find him more attractive following that event. it's the basic maternal feeling of wanting to take care of someone/something that has difficulty looking after itself, and the pride at them standing up for themselves, even when overpowered.

my somewhat lengthy 2 cents (Canadian). :)

[penm.livejournal.com]

Interestingly enough, there's plenty of Snapeslash, despite how he's described as rather ...less than charming... in the books. It's facinating to note the evolution of Snape's appearence, the permutations of his descriptive words, and the near sexualization of ugliness.

Well you know, I don't like Snape's looks but I find him a fascinating character. The bare shadow of a past shown in OOTP, the way he says the things he says, why he's so desperately unfair to Harry, etc. And there's the whole 'cruel' thing. If fanon!Draco does it, it's okay. If canon!Snape does it, he's a big greasy slimeball fucker. But pair that sleek cruelty with his sinister appearance and you get one of those villainy good guys (well... I suppose, good guy, you never know) who are absolutely fab to analyze, read and write. (I've never written Snape fic. I really should though.)

Or, and here's a flip-side that'll probably give the rest of you heart attacks to hear me say, but I didn't find Sands 'attractive' for most of the film. The 'pork' scene highlighted the flat qualities of his face and his character was pretty much an ass.

Well I found Sands fine in terms of looks but his character -- indeed, was an ass. However the thing that was really w00tworthy was, as you mentioned, the end. His stubborness to turn the tables and win the games even when the odds were impossible. How, when all his plans unravelled faster than a ball of yarn in a kitten's paws, he was still standing.

his nose tilts towards the left. Yet I find myself thinking of it as a 'quirk' and 'eccentricity', despite the fact that for all intents and purposes it's a flaw.

I love those quirks and eccentricities. One of the guys I liked for the longest time has the sweetest smile and a canine that's too high up, too thin and too sharp that gives his smile an adorable off-kilter quality. It's a flaw but I like him because of it.

So, um, basically what I'm saying is beauty is in the eye of the beholder (yes, cliche, I know) and, uh, just yay for us with different and eccentric tastes. You can't define beauty -- and being perfect all around is not beautiful, it's just irritating. So, uh, yeah. :D

Two chocolate coins' worth

[madam-h.livejournal.com]

On the "too pretty to be attractive front"... although I appreciate the pretty boys, I much prefer them when they are cut about and bashed in some way - beautiful men looking ill.

Hence my Sands adoration: a beautiful man (because, let's face it, he scrubs up nicely) all shot to shit and eyeless;
Spike whenever he's all beat up (luckily, this happens a lot!);
Captain Jack with his wonderful scar collection;
Fred and his sad, pale, opium-addict thang;
Maybe even Lurtz - he's so desperately in need of a good dentist and a wash, but I love him...

There are so many others. Give me a lovely chap who needs a good bath, some bandages and a bit of nursing over a perfectly healthy cutie any day.

And a little on the perfect symmetry = weird/boring idea. I look at a lot of folk with piercings and those few who have perfectly symmetrical piercings look rather odd, i.e. a septum plus one ring in each nostril, all the same size and colour - it can seem a bit bizarre.

One of my favourite quotes of all, from Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam: "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in proportion."

[maymorning.livejournal.com]

Thinking about it, perhaps this says more about being a woman. Are we hard-wired to prefer men who are in need of a goog looking after? Perhaps it's more to do with them being weak and frail, when the dears are taught they should be the strong ones. I'm thinking of Mr Rochester at the end of "Jane Eyre" who really seems to grab Jane's heart the most when he is blind (a common theme it seems!), crippled and homeless. I had a tutor who thought this was an example of female writer breaking male character's nuts. But I argued that it had more to do with women often preferring the weaker man to the strong one we're supposed to want. I don't think it's essentially a maternal thing as such. Just that if they need us, then they're not likely to wander off/get violent. Do you see what I'm getting at? (I am not very good with words.)

[winter]

*nods thoughtfully* I think it might also be the case of more equal footing - after all in the traditional sense, the woman's supposed to be the weaker partner. A hurt man allows a woman to both indulge her maternal instincts, help her partner in a significant manner *grumbles about ingrateful bastards who don't appreciate the effort cooking and cleaning takes* and start off a relationship on a more equal footing.

Example? El/Carolina. Especially the scene in Desperado when he makes a scene about her relation to Bucho while he himself has just had three knives stuck into him...

[pirouette.livejournal.com]

I came here through fabu's journal.

I've found Jet/Spike. Granted, it was on FFN (read = horrible, no good, very bad self-insertion garbage heap), and it was extremely plebe. I've also found Jet/Faye, here (http://dragonfly.cox.miami.edu/bebop/mercy.html).

Sorry I didn't answer the question (I suspect it was just rhetoric), but I have really odd tastes in men. Although mainly I seem to write slash between random pairings(Remus/Lucius 4eva!), so yeah, I shouldn't leave comments. LOL.

[fanfic101.livejournal.com]

Hey there! I adore Alan Rickman, especially his voice as fabu commented earlier, but I found Snape compelling even before the films because his actions seem to contradict one another. For that reason he bears watching and the longer you watch someone, well... conventionally handsome or not, he is a puzzle to wonder over. Is Rickman!Snape prettier than Canon!Snape? Maybe. I would actually argue that one of the things the movie did for Snape was cut out a lot of his pettiness (for time reasons, I'm sure.) Without his constant er, um *snaping* he is more palatable, especially in fanfiction where often the reader understands it as an act. However, I must say I have to laugh every time (and they address it almost every time) an author adresses Snape's "greasy" hair. I think Legolas/Gimli may not be popular not only because of Gimli's appearance, but also because they have cut a great deal of the animosity that exists between them in the beginning of the book. There seems to be little tension between them other than the "I will not see the ring in the hands of an elf!" statement at the Council. In the book they work through a lot of differences to arrive at their deep (slashy?) friendship. The movie cuts most of it and simply uses Gimli as comic relief.

[ficangel.livejournal.com]

Creepy as it sounds, I found Sands hot for the first time with his own eyes running down his face and his gun in his hand. Because something fundamental inside of him was changed by what happened to him, and I want to figure out what that change was and how deep it runs. Same with Snape. I want to know how the victimized but still rather vile boy from OotP was formed in the first place, what led to full Death-Eater participation, and what led to the careen back onto the path of, presumably (I hardly think that Voldemort is really a fluffy puppy with bad teeth in disguise, but Dumbledore's casual manipulations of those around him, all the while drenched in morality, creep me right the fuck out) the good guys. I want to Know everything (in case you couldn't tell, I wouldn't have simply eaten the mythical apple, I probably would have gotten right down and gnawed on the tree bark) about them, right on down into what makes them stand up and keep fighting when everyone else would have fallen to their knees and given up.

my thruppence.

[adjectivegirl.livejournal.com]

Canon-wise, I think everyone's is forgetting that Snape is a double agent.

And fuck sake's, there's a whole genre of entertainment that routinely gets off on double agents, which is of course, spy movies. Whoever mentioned James Bond's villains as being slightly but sexily disfigured is totally right on. Snape's just that kinda guy. He plays both sides and almost constantly keeps that fact causticly concealed against boring You Entirely Ruined Your Pubsecent Whining Potion, Mister Potter patter.

Best of all, it doesn't even seem decided whether or not he's gonna be good or evil, so forget redemption as a natural response to a guy on the fence, most ficcers are swooning cause they get to choose their own ending, which can be extra squish to extra angst according to a few keystrokes. That kind of power is also hot.

Besides, it's been noted by those better than I that J.K.R. near constantly strives to make her characters unattractive. Perhaps the only characters (of hundreds) she has ever explicitly called goodlooking were Fleur, Cedric and young Sirius, and gosh look at that, two of them she 86'd. Most HPcanon universe people are hook-nosed, greasy haired, messy haired, fat, sallow-skinned, limping lifeforms, which, heck makes for a really ugly subculture. Has Stan never heard of Accutane?

Anyway, brush all that aside, and disfigurement is sexy. Not that I'd call a complete inability to regularly wash your hair sexy, but hey, it worked for Aragorn.

Sands, it has to be said, is really hot because of the perversions of his body. Three arms, no eyes, ugly moustache? The works. I mean if you take a step back, in no way would Jack Sparrow's look done it for me if it hadn't been filled with Johnny Depp and his enormous...talent. (Mostly) white boy with dreads and gold teeth? Count me out. In theory.