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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?
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?
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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
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Night. *bows and runs off*
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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.
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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.
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It's crazy.
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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...
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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...
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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.
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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.
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::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...)
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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.
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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.
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Someone does have a full doujin of hers scanned in though. Go here to ogle - http://www.angelfire.com/my/nqp/c_o.html
And not that I think it's necessarily the reason that there's a lack of Bebop yaoi and such, but I personally never really had that much of an urge to write for it myself (and ultimately when trying, have found it very difficult to) because to me the series feels so complete overall. :p
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If that makes sense?
Besides, Aziraphale's quaint. That's part of his charm. If he gets prettified, he's not as, well, Aziraphale. Considering that a major part of Aziraphale's personality is devoted to worrying about his looks... well, that part should be based on something, because Aziraphale worries over real life things, not abstract facts so much. I imagine it's why he's just fine with having an arrangement with a demon, but worries about the hassle when his body dies.
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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.
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yup! that does, and yeah Aziraphael just kinda fussy and eccentric and detail-orientated because the rest is kinda just 'ineffable' anyhoo...::grins and pets the angel::
it's just...it's like a visual representation of love in the fanart y'know? like the same feeling that goes into the lines of the art and the emotion from which the art arises comes from, the intent more than reproducing reality like rose-colored glasses...
I dunno. I guess it really depends on how you view and prefer your fanart.
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I don't agree at all about Aziraphale -- he's...quaint, and charming, and sweet, but with a rather hard core under it all -- he can be a scary fucker when he wants. And I guess -- I don't think loving someone causes them to become a bishounen in one's mind. It just means that their imperfections become beautiful. The guy I'm currently quasiseeing (whom I wouldn't use the word 'love' about yet, especially not in the platonic sense) has a bit of a tummy and kind of bad hair and an aquiline nose and while he is what many people would find attractive and knows it, he's not classically handsome. I don't see him as classically handsome in my mind -- I see him as what he is and appreciate that.
And gah, there's already quite enough anime out there without trying to turn Good Omens, which is pretty much the polar opposite of a yaoi doujinshi, into a yaoi doujinshi.
But possibly I am just bitter about all the pretty!Aziraphale fic that twists the characters away from all semblance of the ones I love.
(I don't actually think Crowley is meant to be really handsome, either. Flash, yes, but not necessarily gorgeous.)
glad you linked this! part 1
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
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.
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::grins and stifles comment::
...loving someone causes them to become a bishounen in one's mind.
erm..not so much that as the emotional context of a bishonen. Like Aziraphael takes the position of a bishonen because that's what some artists are wired to do.
Like...hmm...okay, I'm going to try an example here and feel free to smack me if it doesn't work...like how Ringu was reworked into The Ring which was scarier for me than Ringu because my brain's *context* was hard-wired differently. I get more startled by gore and less scared by implication.
In a way I feel like all art has it's place and purpose, and even though a view of a character doesn't fit my own, it's a semi-valid view because it is percieved at all. I kinda feel like the purpose of art is in it's perception, if even by only the artist themself, and it's realization. That even if a perception of something hurts my world-view, there is still space for it because as long as it is percieved it is 'truth' for those percieving.
Re: glad you linked this! part 3
And now... to the big one: Legolas/Gimli.
When I read the book I was in middle school and early high school and had barely tapped into the idea of Slashfic. I knew it was out there, but never read it. As such, it never occurred to me to slash Legolas and Gimli. I thought that, like the rest of the characters, they had a beautiful friendship that transcended prejudice and was absolutely asexual. I didn't get a sexual feeling out of anything in LOTR. I didn't even think of Legolas as sexual until I watched the movies. He's not really sexual in the movies, either, but he's Orlando Bloom In A Blond Wig With Suggestive Backlighting and that's enough.
Anyway, I guess my overall point is that Legolas/Gimli has been cemented in my head as purely platonic for so long, that it'd take Tolkein himself saying "Gimli and Legolas are adopting a child and changing their names and picking out treehouses together" before I ever gave the thought of slashiness a real foothold in my brain.
I'll say this... Gimli in the film was unnatractive to me, whereas book!Gimli to me was neither attractive or not. Movie Gimli looked older and grislier than I imagined, rather like someone's grandfather. If we're talking about slashing the films, then it's even more difficult, because the film gives equal time to the Legolas/Aragorn friendship as to the Gimli/Legolas frienship. That was something that surprised me a bit, since in the book in my memory Legolas didn't really seem to be super-best friends with/bodyguard to Aragorn like he was in the films. He really did come off as bodyguardish to me.
Could I ever slash them together?
1) Emotionally, I think Legolas and Gimli are close enough. But that doesn't take into account the deep racial divides of Middle Earth. When I think of it, I get the feeling that Legolas could be friends with a hundred dwarves, and the idea of having the equivalent fo a marriage relationship with one of them would never cross his mind. What's strange about that theory is the Gimli *did* fall in love with Galadriel... maybe I only imagine it as elves being preferential? I dunno.
2) As entertainment value of reading two characters in love get it on: nope. I couldn't read Elf/dwarf sex, or read Human/Hobbit sex, and find it sexy. The physical size difference puts me off visually, and that would be the case even without the films. Some people like that; I just don't. In parody format, of course, it's very amusing. But in a serious story I wouldn't find it sexy at all. Just like 6'5" guys with 4'9" women kind of makes me feel a little squicky. Does she have Daddy issues? Does he have secret pedophile issues? Is it uncomfortable to kiss when in certain positions? My personal preference, if I want to read it to be titillated, is that the people doing it are about the same size, and that transfers, I guess, to the fanfic I read. Since most of the time in fic all characters are humans, it doesn't really come up much. But I've avoided it in LotR fic for that reason.
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ooo, yes. All the characters were so well-formed and it struck such a lovely balance between drama and comedy and it really just did a great job overall.
speaking of which, I must pimp this anime more...
part 2 -oops
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rashaka/277681.html
Re: part 2 -oops
umm. yeah. going to download fic now....
Re: part 2 -oops
Give yourself time to read number 1 and it's sequel (more like direct continuation cause the story stops in the middle of the plot.) That's my reigning favorite of all CB fic so far.
I'm glad I "met" you with the Heathen Gods drabble thing. I love meeting anime fans! Especially when they write well and like so many fandoms that I like. :)