There are many different people in the fandom surrounding Alex, Hawaii Five-0 and Moonlight. What makes it so interesting is that none of us are the same. We are a bunch of interesting people in the fandom and most of the time everybody is a pleasure to encounter.
One of the segments of Alex’s fans is also the shippers and with them fanfic writers and a big part of it seems to be slashfic writers. I must admit I have only read a few chapters of any of it and I do not really know that much about it myself.
I got into a discussion with one of the Mick/Josef writers and I thought it might be an interesting subject for further study. She wrote me a beautiful essay on why she writes and I want to invite more writers to do the same. From all the information I get from everyone, I would like to write a report on my findings.
Just some explanation for people who do not know the terms “shipper” or “slash fiction” (this is from the wiki-pages and I do not often trust information on there, but I hope that it more or less covers the subjects):
Shipping, derived from the word relationship, is the belief that two characters, fictional or non-fictional, are in an intimate relationship, have romantic feelings that could potentially lead to a relationship, or have another form of less intimate relationship, which may involve platonic friendship, or even violence. It is considered a general term for fans’ emotional involvement with the ongoing development of romance in a work of fiction. Though technically applicable to any such involvement, it refers chiefly to various related social dynamics observable on the Internet, and is seldom used outside of that context.
Slash fiction, or Alternative fiction, is a genre of fan fiction that focuses on the depiction of interpersonal attraction and/or sexual relationships between fictional characters of the same-sex. While the term was originally restricted to stories in which male media characters were involved in an explicit sexual relationship as a primary plot element (also known as “slash”, “m/m slash”, “menslash”, “altfic”), it is now often used to refer to any fan story containing a pairing between same-sex characters, although many fans distinguish the female-focused variety as a separate genre commonly referred to as femslash (also known as “f/f slash”, “femmeslash”, “altfic” and “saffic”). The characters are usually not engaged in such relationships in their respective fictional universes.
This is my invitation to all slash writers involved in shipping Alex’s character in any relationship, to take part. I will handle all information I receive with the utmost respect and discretion.
If you are interested to take part, please write an essay on your motivation for writing the slashfic (not a whole novel please 😉). I am posting a number of questions that might help you in compiling your essay – they are all optional for you to answer and merely a guideline. It will just help to see how each individual feels about the same type of subjects. Please feel free to add anything that you might feel relevant to you as a person and writer.
Questions:
- Which relationship do you write about?
- Do you only write about the fictional character or does your writing involve the real actors as well? (Is it allowed?)
- Have you yourself ever been in a same-sex relationship?
- Do you have close personal male friends that are gay?
- Would you ship Alex (as his character) with any male partner or just the present relationship you write about?
- Has your story moved on to a serious sexual relationship yet?
- Do you like both men in the relationship equally?
- Do you read the works of other writers – that write about the same characters as yourself or different characters?
- If by some miracle Television changes overnight and these characters really got romantically involved, what would your reaction be?
- If you found out that the actors who portray these characters are in fact gay and involved with each other, what would your reaction be?
- Who reads your stories and do you write to please your supporters?
I will give everybody time until after next weekend to respond. If you know somebody that writes fanfic and they do not follow our blog, please let them know about this invitation to all slash fiction writers involved with writing about Alex’s characters. I would love to get as many people as possible participating. If you would like to participate and don’t have time to respond before end of next weekend, please let me know and I will postpone compiling my report.
I hope you all will see this as a good opportunity to tell your story and I hope you will trust me with it.
You are welcome to send me your essay to the blog e-mail or to my personal e-mail: fo.yeur@gmail.com I do apologise if I use any terms incorrectly and would appreciate any corrections.
Update:
My Report:
Alex O´Loughlin ~ An Intense Study 
Excellent topic, F! I myself am not a shipper, or a fan of slash, and I’m interested to see the motivation behind wishing for shipping.
*no offence to any shippers at all* it’s just not my thing. But after looking at a lot of the McDanno gifs and pics lately, I can see ‘the looks’ between the boys, and if I was a shipper, I’d be happy!😄
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Just doing my bit to bring better understanding of one another to the community…. 🙂
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This is a ‘Ship Manifesto’ I wrote for the pairing of Mick & Josef. You’re welcome to read it if it helps to give you a better insight into the phenomenon of ‘shipping’ 🙂
http://ship-manifesto.livejournal.com/266749.html
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Hey, Emerald. I haven’t seen if you’ve posted here before, but it’s great to see you here. I’ve read a lot of your fanfic, and I love it. Mick and Joseph together are really amazing.
I used to post Moonlight fanfic on fanfic.com under my real name, but had to take it down because my day job and my writing erotic romance didn’t mesh so now all my public profiles are under my pen name. Don’t know if you ever got to read what I had up–it was simply titled Moonlight Continued and picked up where Sonata left off. It’s been down for a few years now, so you probably don’t remember.
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Sorry, guess it’s fanfiction.net. Should have looked first.
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I’m pretty much the main writer for Mick/Josef, although I do have a couple of friends who write occasionally. I’ll have word to them and see if I can get their answers. I’ll have a word to the H50 slashers I know as well. 🙂
In the meantime, I’ll answer those questions here, hopefully, maybe spark a bit of a discussion. Thank you for doing this as well, I really appreciate you approaching the topic with respect (some of us have copped a fair share of abuse for what we do, so it’s always nice when someone speaks to us nicely about it).
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Warning: Long Post is LOOOOONNNNGGGG 😉
Questions:
1. Which relationship do you write about?
Josef Kostan/Mick St John of Moonlight (exclusively)
2. Do you only write about the fictional character or does your writing involve the real actors as well? (Is it allowed?)
Strictly fictional characters only. When I’m in the creative zone of slash the actor’s cease to exist for me, and I am solely focused on the characters alone. I can’t write any other way, and I do mean that quite literally. If the thought of one of the actors accidentally strays across my brain when I’m writing, I can’t continue on and will need to take a break anywhere from a couple of hours to a day or more, before my mind will allow me to start writing again. That’s just me though, characterisation, and getting it right, is a major driving force in my writing, so for me it’s like ‘how can I be writing Mick St John if I’m thinking about Alex O’Loughlin’. To me it would be like saying ‘I’m going to write about Huckleberry Fin by thinking of Peter Lenkov’, you know it just doesn’t compute.
I do know some RPS (real person slash) writers, including those who have written about Alex. They know my feelings on the subject, they know it squicks me out (squick meaning to give an icky feeling), I don’t read their work, they don’t ask me to, and everything’s okay, we get along quite well. Just because I personally object to RPS (let me clarify I object to RPF. real person fiction, which is the heterosexual equivalent, as well), and find the notion of it to be more than a tad creepy, that doesn’t mean I’d ever start barreling in on people and telling them what they can and can’t write. I don’t like RPS, I don’t read it, I don’t go looking for it, that works out nicely for everyone.
3. Have you yourself ever been in a same-sex relationship?
Yes, I am married to a man now, but I do identify as Queer/Bisexual. Truth be told I tend to be more attracted to women overall than I do men, so my interesting in writing male/male slash isn’t because I saw two hot guys, and went ‘Yippee let’s make them have sex’.
I’ve also been fairly active in the Queer rights movement, on and off, over the past 20 or so years. As I indicated in my essay to you, at least some of the motivation for my writing slash fiction is socio-politically focused.
4. Do you have close personal male friends that are gay?
I’ve had a few over the years.One, who is a friend of my husband’s, that I’m in contact with now, although that’s sporadic. We go through periods where we email and chat every day, multiple times a day even, and then we’ll both get busy/distracted with life & won’t speak for months at a time. He’s read my work, my sexually explicit pieces at least. He said if he didn’t know any better he would have thought he was reading stuff written by gay man – Best.Compliment.EVER! 😀 Or at least it was one of the best compliments I’ve ever received on my work. I don’t think I’m all that a good writer, I’d class myself as mediocre to average at best, but it’s always nice, if a little bewildering, when people say nice things about it. 🙂
5. Would you ship Alex (as his character) with any male partner or just the present relationship you write about?
I’m an OTP shipper (One True Pairing) when it comes to Mick & Josef. As far as I’m concern my head canon (the way the story goes in my mind) is that they are absolutely destined to be together, for all eternity, literally. That doesn’t mean I won’t read other people’s work if it’s a MickBeth or MickCora or JosefSarah, and so on, piece. I mean I appreciate seeing other people’s creativity, and the way they express their love for a show (in this case, Moonlight). It’s like my Mick is my Mick and I like to pair him up exclusively with Josef, and their Mick is their Mick and they like to pair him up with Beth, or Coraline. And we’ll all hold hands, and sing Kumbaya and live happily ever after. 🙂
6. Has your story moved on to a serious sexual relationship yet?
So far I’ve written approximately 84 short stories, one novella and 4 book length multi-chapter pieces. They all range from G rated works, where little more than a meaningful glance, and perhaps some hand holding takes place, right through to sexually explicit NC17 rated kink!fics – and everything in between.
In my ongoing multi-chapter serial, I have written Josef & Mick as being in a long term, committed relationship, and eventually married. And yes they have sex in that story, they have all kinds of sex. Actually with that serial in particular, it’s been interesting to read back over it and see the evolution of how I approach writing sex. The first installment I didn’t really know what the hell I was doing with much of anything in terms of writing, having not done a single word of creative writing in close to 20 years, and the sex scenes tended to be full of really bad ‘Mills and Boon’ style euphemisms. Then I spoke to another, much more experienced, slash writer, who advised me that I shouldn’t be afraid of using correct terminology (prostate, perineum, anus, etc) when it came to writing male on male sex, so I took her advice a little too literally and started writing every sex scene as if you needed a copy of Gray’s Anatomy to understand what the heck they were doing. It was explicit to the point of being almost farcical. Since then, with the help and influence of other Moonlight fanfic writers in particular, I’ve sort of now developed more of a middle way approach. My sex scenes do tend to still be explicit, but the language isn’t as harsh, and I also adapt the language more to what type of scene I’m writing – for example, a softer, more romantic scene I’d use softer language, a more passionate, ‘going at it hammer and tongs’ type scene, then the language would be a little rougher to reflect that.
7. Do you like both men in the relationship equally?
I love them as a couple, but if I’m completely honest I do have more of a soft spot for Josef, and he’s the character I most enjoy writing.
8. Do you read the works of other writers – that write about the same characters as yourself or different characters?
Oh yes, definitely. I make it a point to seek out, and read other works related to the pairing of Josef/Mick, and to be as welcoming and encouraging to the writer as I can – especially if I sense they’re fairly new at writing the pairing & would benefit from a boost of encouragement. The Moonlight slash fandom is fairly small, so anything I can do to help encourage others to come on board, I’m in. I also read other writers work, not necessarily restricted only to my main pairing, and discuss different approaches to writing with other fan fic writers (both slash and otherwise) so that I might work on improving my own writing.
9. If by some miracle Television changes overnight and these characters really got romantically involved, what would your reaction be?
My own sexuality and politics aside, speaking strictly as a shipper and slasher my reaction would most likely be – “Noooooo, God, WHHHHYYYY!!!!! Thanks a lot, you’ve just ruined half the fun for me.” 😦
I mean of course I’d be ecstatic if Television changed & we got more realistic and respectful portrayals of same sex relationships on screen, but part of the attraction to slash, with me, is that while the relationship isn’t canon (ie it’s not part of the official storyline of the show) then I’m the one who has control of the characters when I’m writing. I’m the one who gets to decide when they get together, how, why, when they first kiss, when they first have sex, and so on. I don’t have to wait for another writer on a show to tell me how I’m supposed to view the pairing I’ve fallen in love with.
Janis Cortese in her Fanfic Symposium Essay ‘Why Subtext is Better than Text’ said it best I think. To quote:
“I’m one of those loud people who feel a deep desire to not allow myself to be manipulated or controlled. I dislike in the extreme feeling as if something I’ve done wasn’t truly my choice, or that I was shepherded toward something without my knowledge or consent. I don’t necessary dislike constraints; we all have to live with constraints on our behavior. But I like to choose them, freely, with a full understanding of what benefits accrue to voluntarily accepting the constraint.
Text is constraint. Subtext is freedom.”
http://www.trickster.org/symposium/symp141.html
10.If you found out that the actors who portray these characters are in fact gay and involved with each other, what would your reaction be?
In terms of story writing I’d have little to no reaction at all, apart from maybe ‘Oh, that’s kind of interesting’. The actors aren’t the characters they portray, so for me their respective real life sexual orientation just isn’t relevant.
Having said that, although Alex has declared himself to be heterosexual, I do know, or at least it’s not that hard to figure out, that he is a supporter of the LGBT community, and has a considerable following among segments of same sex attracted guys as well. There was some confusion among some fans a few years back, over Alex’s sexuality, because it was revealed he was once featured in a Sydney based gay lifestyle magazine as ‘Sydney’s sexiest barman’ & was working in a Gay Bar at the time. Some fans were shocked, to say the least, and began to question whether or not Alex was gay himself. A few of them did go into pearl clutching fits of vapours over the mere thought that this could possibly true, because they couldn’t conceive of a same sex attracted man being as much of a masculine, ‘real man’ as they thought Alex was. As I pointed out at the time, that is not only a false assumption, but implying that a man who is sexually and/or romantically attracted to another man isn’t a ‘real man’ is actually pretty damn rude & insulting.
If, in some alternate universe, Alex was to suddenly come out and announce he was gay, my first response would most likely to be firstly congratulate him on making the decision to live true to himself, and welcome him to the community, and then I’d probably turn around and mock the ‘OMG not Alex, never, never, NEVAH!!!1111′ brigade relentlessly. 😛
11. Who reads your stories and do you write to please your supporters?
Oh wow, this is a hard one. My readers cover a wide spectrum of ages, social backgrounds, religious beliefs, and so on. In age they range from teenagers through to 80+ years old. Social backgrounds anywhere from struggling on welfare through to quite well off, upper middle class. Religion spans the spectrum from Neo Pagans and Buddhists, right through to conservative, near fundamentalist Christians’ – one of my longest and most ardent supporters is a politically right wing, conservative traditionalist Catholic, I am a politically left wing, liberal member of the Wiccan faith – we’ve been best friends for the past 4-5 years to the point that we’ve adopted each other as sisters in cyberspace. Don’t ever assume that a certain type of person won’t ever read or be involved in the slash fandom. And of course at least some of my readership does also include LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) identified people as well.
Adding to that, I have had a number of queer identified and questioning teenagers read my work, and then contact me to say thank you for allowing them to see a positive view of the way they had been feeling themselves. Part of me is a bit iffy about allowing anyone under the age of 18 to read my work, and admittedly in the last few years I have become stricter about the age limits I set on who can and can’t access what I wrote, but then again, on the other hand, when I’ve gotten emails and messages from kids saying ‘you’ve really helped me’, then it’s like my attitude changes and I feel different about it.In this particular situation I don’t have a straightforward, easy answer. I do what I can to ensure only those over the age of 18 are allowed to read my work, but kids have ways of getting around things, and at the end of the day if reading something I’ve written helps some 15 year old gay youth to feel better about themselves, and have a more positively outlook, especially if they’ve been struggling with feelings of self loathing, and shame, well, then that’s a positive thing in my book. I’ve also been contacted by a parent/parents on occasion as well, who’ve read my work & then wanted to ask me questions about it in an effort to understand their own child’s sexuality. In both these situations, it’s the only time I couldn’t care less whether my writing is any good or not.
Believe it or not I’ve also had at least a couple of people who started off with very homophobic attitudes, freely admitting they found the idea of homosexuality in general, or two men together in a sexual/romantic relationship specifically, to be completely sickening and gross, but who still felt obliged to read my work because they liked me as a person. Both of them went on to become regular readers, one is now slowly beginning to challenge and change her previous attitudes, and the other did such a complete turn around she became a straight ally & started actively supporting the struggle for LGBT rights. You know it’s moments like that, and the ones I described above, that make all the abuse, all the name calling, all the questioning of my personal morals, just not even matter.
As for whether or not I write to please others. Mostly I write to honour the characters I love and adore. I try to do the best job I can, and strive to constantly improve my writing, because of that sense of adoration. Having said that, there are times when I will write by request (someone asks me to write a certain scenario, and I will try to fill that for them – although I do have ground rules) & there are certainly other times when I happen to know a particularly supportive reader, and friend, might like a certain style of story, so I’ll write one as a little ‘thank you for being so awesome to me over the years’ type gift every now and then.:)
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Thanks Emerald.
I really enjoyed this and had such a good laugh at some of the fun parts. Do you use a lot of humour in your writing as well….your way of writing and explaining some of the above shows a good knack for it as well.
It is as you say, sometimes you wonder why you bother to do something and that gratitude from one person makes it all worth while….
I will use this as well as your essay and what I get from the others to compile my report. Still working on how I will do it and it will also depend on the respondses I get from the others to see what type of report will work best.
I myself am not a writer, but more a researcher, so I hope I will be able to do you all justice. 🙂
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I don’t intentionally use humour in my writing, I mean it’s not like I sit down and go ‘Okay, I’m going to write a comedy story and make people laugh’. But the character of Josef Kostan is a very witty one, you know he tends to be a tad on the snarky/sarcastic side, and drops a lot of one liners, and so on, so when I’m writing him I suppose some humour does come through simply because of that aspect of the character I’m writing about.
Like I said self confidence in my work is something I struggle with, a lot. I have gotten a lot better over the past few years, but I do find it hard to even say ‘I’m a writer’, because I tend to feel like my work is so average, and I still have so much to learn, and need so much practice, that like how dare I compare myself to those other people who can actually craft words into these wonderful stories. But then someone comes along and pays me a really nice compliment, or says how much reading my work has helped them, and it’s like ‘I’ve helped someone, or I’ve made someone happy, Yay me!’. In those moments I can forget about my own self doubts and criticism, at least for a little while.
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You’re welcome to read some of my work, if you’re interested. My short stories can all be found here –
http://archiveofourown.org/users/Emerald/works
Just as a quick guide, anything marked with a red ‘E’ is ‘Explicit’ and has the equivalent of an NC17 rating; anything marked with an orange ‘M’ is ‘Mature’ may contain milder sex scenes, with the equivalent of an R rating, anything marked with a yellow ‘T’ is ‘Teenage’ (suitable for teen audiences and up) may contain some sexual references, physical demonstrations of affection, kissing, and so on, but nothing too overt, with the equivalent of a PG13-PG15 (at the most) rating, and anything marked with a green ‘G’ is ‘General’ and is the same as G rated for a movie. 🙂
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I’d say anyone interested should go read some of Emerald’s stories. They are awesome. I do prefer more sexually explicit stories, but that’s why I write erotic romance.
I wanted to start writing some Mick/Joseph slash, but my other writing took over so I never got the chance. The only difference I was going to do compared to a lot of what is out there was to make Mick the top and Joseph the bottom. I understand why most have Joseph as the top, but I really think Joseph would like to be more submissive to Mick. And I can just picture Mick taking charge and holding Joseph down and… Sorry. Maybe that’s just my fantasy.
I honestly don’t ship Steve and Danny–or any other of Alex’s characters besides Mick–with Beth, Coraline, or Joseph. Don’t ask me what the difference is. Maybe it’s the whole vampire sexuality thing. And I agree with Emerald on the real life stuff being off limits no matter the pairing.
Can’t wait to see what everyone has to offer with this. Great post.
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Meant to say I do prefer the more sexually explicit stories she writes–or anyone for that matter. Didn’t mean hers aren’t explicit enough.
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First of all, thank you so much for the lovely compliment on my work. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to hearing stuff like that, it still makes me go all coy and ‘aww shucks, really?’. But I really appreciate it, so thank you. ❤ And I'd love to check out some of your writing as well, I'm not sure if I have already or not (my brain is like a sieve sometimes).
We should probably explain the terms 'top' and 'bottom' as well, for those who don't know. 'Top' refers to the giver in anal sex, and 'Bottom' refers to the receiver – in other words the top is the one doing the f***ing, the bottom is the one getting f***ed. There is also a separate BDSM based meaning for both those terms as well, but we'll be here for a month of Sundays if I try and explain the nuances of every little thing 😉
Anyway, I know, in general, that Josef as a bottom is a lot more popular idea than Mick. It's probably one of the most common things I get asked to write when I do offer to fill requests – 'I want XYZ scenario, and I want Josef to bottom'. I will write it, and in my multi-chapter especially there is more of a tendency for them to switch and take turns, but for the most part I much prefer writing Mick as the bottom. With Josef it's like I need a reason, like some sort of emotion, or something he's needing to express, to have him bottom, but with Mick, I can't explain why, exactly, but I look at Mick, and my brain automatically goes 'oh he'd be a versatile bottom'. Conversely to me Josef just screams 'top'.
I will admit though, and this is also something I wrote in the essay I sent to Foyeur on why I write slash fiction, part of my motivation in writing Mick as a bottom is to challenge preconceived notions of masculinity, and what constitutes a same sex attracted guy. Out of Mick and Josef, Mick does tend to be perceived as the more masculine of the two, and there is a pervasive myth that masculine men just don't do that (be on the receiving end of sex), that somehow to have them do so is feminising, and weakening them, and taking away from their masculinity. And that's just total B.S in my book, so yeah I like kind of turning the tables a bit as it were and challenging those types of ideas, and hopefully making people stop and think and maybe challenge their own preconceived ideas as well. 🙂
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You’re welcome. You deserve it. It took me a while to take compliments on my writing–or on anything. I pulled my only fanfic, but if you want a copy of my first novelette erotic romance, just let me know. That goes for anyone here. I’ll gladly give you guys an ebook or two. Alex fans have to stick together.
Yeah, I didn’t think to explain the top and bottom part of it. Thanks for adding that.
I agree with you completely on the masculine one still being able to bottom. And I do like them being able to switch. I guess my thing is, I look at Mick as more emotional and needing to release some of that as a top. I think he’d maybe go too far, though, with all he’s been holding back. And on the flip side, I see Joseph as this in charge vamp that needs to let loose and bottom for Mick. You know, kind of like the independant woman CEO who bosses everyone around all day then needs to be dominated at night. Maybe cliche. I don’t know.
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Hi Lorraine
Haven’t seen you around for a while. Glad I could spark some conversation on the creativeness of writers
For me creativity is such a big part of humanity and growing as a person and I am a big advocate for anyone to explore it in which ever direction their passion goes…..
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Oh, I’ve still been lurking. Sometimes I’m too busy staring to comment–seriously.
You did spark a good conversation. Hope you get a lot of input. I love to read all erotic romance, no matter the pairing, but I’ve only been brave enough to write m/f, but one day I’d like to write m/m or menage.
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Foyeur, I want to thank you, again, for approaching this subject with such interest and respect. I will encourage as many of my slash friends as possible to come forward and contribute to the research you’re doing, but understand some may be reluctant to do so. Slashers tend to get ‘studied’ a lot, sometimes those studies are interesting, and positive, and other times they’re based on sensationalism, half-truths and outright lies, and a desire to prove how we’re all a bunch of silly degenerates. There are some in the slash fandom who do refuse to engage with anyone doing research on the subject, simply because they’ve been burnt one too many times, or their just sick of having to justify their interest in slash in the face of other people’s criticism.
I don’t think I mentioned why I actually started writing slash fiction in the first place, apart from my love of the characters, and a desire to honour that.
In the early days of the Moonlight fandom, slash fiction, and the idea of shipping Josef & Mick as a couple was treated as very, very taboo. I remained in what we call ‘the ship closet’ for months (means I didn’t reveal I was into Josef/Mick as a pairing), I even pretended to be a MickBeth shipper, because I’d seen the sort of abuse people had copped if they dared to go against what was considered ‘acceptable’ in the fandom.
The first person to ever write Josef/Mick in the Moonlight fandom was literally hounded of it by a constant barrage of abuse over the fact that she had dared to imagine Josef & Mick as a romantic couple. Eventually it got too much for her and she abandoned her story, and left the fandom. But then a few months later she decided to return, and take a stand. In essence she basically came back in and said ‘There are people who want to read what I’m writing, I am going to continue to write it, and if you don’t like that, too bad, you don’t have to read it’. I remember it being such an awesome ‘f*ck you’ moment, and I wanted to show some sort of solidarity and appreciation for what she was doing. I didn’t want her to be the only one who was copping sh*t from people over Josef/Mick, so pretty much on the same day I stepped out of the ship closet, openly declared I was a Josef/Mick shipper, and posted my very first story.
Of course then it was my turn to be on the receiving end of a lot of criticism and abuse, but by that stage I’d fallen so completely in love with the characters, and the idea of a relationship between them, that I just couldn’t have cared less. The way I looked at it, the way I still look at it is these are fictional characters in a made up, storybook world, if anyone is going to get that bent out shape over something that isn’t even real, they’re the ones with the problem, not me. 🙂
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Emerald , for me one of the most valuble things for us as the human race, is the ability to be creative. We all have our own unique way of doing so. It is what sets us apart from the animal world.
I feel that as a person totally outside of the world of shipping and slash fic, but one with an open mind towards most things in life, it give me the ability to stay objective, but also be able to “protect” you as a group of people.
As you know this stems from a conversation we started in the comments I am definitely not doing it to sensationalise anything.
I have just always been curious about it, as with most things in life – hence my “Intense Study” of things.
I love Alex and everything surrounding him and his fandom – and this is a big part of it. 🙂
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And again I say, ‘Thank You’ ❤
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See the Josef/Mick emotional thing I see completely different. I think Josef is a lot less controlled, and expresses his emotions a lot more than what Mick does. It’s just that he often does it in a more subtle way, whereas Mick keeps himself so tightly wound with his whole ‘I don’t want to be a vampire, I can’t give in to my true nature’ schtick, that when we do see him expressing emotions it’s like a lid being taken off a volcano and his displays tend to be more forthright and noticeable.
The whole ‘independant woman CEO who bosses everyone around all day then needs to be dominated at night’ type scenario I suppose is a bit of a cliche, but you know cliches don’t just appear out of thin air, usually they are cliches because there is a grain of truth to them. I know of plenty of people in the BDSM scene who fit that description exactly – very powerful, assured, in control, etc, in their daily lives, but when it comes to playtime in the bedroom then they just want to leave all that behind and feel vulnerable and submissive for a while.
And yes, I’d love to read one of your ebooks. My email address is emerald72@bigpond.com if you’d like to send me one. 🙂 It’s interesting as well that you said you hadn’t been brave enough to write M/M work yet, because I feel the same way with M/F. I find the thought of writing M/F erotica very difficult, because it makes me feel too exposed – as if people reading it are automatically going to be wondering if the woman in the piece represents me at all, and they’ll be getting to peep through my bedroom window. I don’t get that same sense of exposure, or vulnerability, when I’m writing M/M, so it allows me to relax more and just concentrate on the actual writing.
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I love that we see Mick and Joseph differently. Maybe that’s why I like reading your stories so much. It’s been a while since I’ve been over there and read anything new, so I’ll have to go see what you’ve been up to lately.
I don’t worry about readers thinking there might be a part of me in the sex scenes. They do that with the heroine in general, so it’s just an extension of that to me. But then, I do openly discuss sex as part of my day job as a psychotherapist so I don’t know if that has anything to do with it or not. There’s a big need for sex therapy–especially to help women open up.
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Crap, I just realized I’ve been spelling Josef wrong. I know how to spell it, but I just haven’t been paying attention because I’m writing these in between patients. Bad fangirl.
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Hey, I misspelled Josef’s name when I first started discussing/writing Moonlight related stuff as well, until someone had to come in and tap me on the shoulder, and go ‘Hey *psst* it’s spelt Josef not Joseph’…Ah, okay, Oops *LOL*
I am very open about discussing sex in general. I’m fairly open about what sorts of things I’m into specifically, depending on who I’m talking to, and based on how I think they will respond to certain things. Like I’ll say I like BDSM/kink (although I haven’t played for years now), or I’m not really into sex that’s slow and soft and stereotypically ‘romantic’, you know, like ‘put on some Barry White, and let’s take an hour to get our clothes off, and then I’ll spend half the night very, very slowly caressing you, and…Zzzzzz’ (that’s mainly because of my ADD, and me being easily distracted – over a certain amount of time my brain just can’t stay in one place anymore, so I lose interest and start wanting to go do other things instead), but I won’t necessarily go into details unless I feel like I know and can trust the person I’m speaking to.
I guess to me there’s a difference between openly discussing sex & being relatively detailed about what you’re into bedroom wise, and giving a graphic, blow by blow description of exactly how you like to go down on someone (which is where the sense of exposure comes into play for me with writing male/female sex scenes). Besides that I tend to get a little nervous, and uncomfortable if I feel like the focus is too much on me (even though I’m obviously a very open person, and will discuss stuff about myself quite readily). It’s like I’ll talk about myself, and focus on myself if I’m having a discussion & I’m using my experiences/opinions to further that discussion, or to try and explain or clarify a point, or especially if I think it will help someone, but beyond that I’m like ‘Hey, take that spotlight off me, don’t look over here, go away…okay, hiding now’.
As for what I’ve been up to writing wise, I’ve written a few new pieces, but I haven’t been especially prolific lately – so basically, not that much. I’m just coming out of a psychotic depressive episode (I’m diagnosed with major depression with psychotic features) and one of the symptoms of that can sometimes include expressive dysphasia. As a therapist I’m sure you know what that means, and it can (and does) interfere a lot with my ability to even manage a few simple sentences at a time, let alone sit down and write and entire an entire story. I very rarely agree to medication for any of my mental health issues, mainly because I have such bad reactions to the majority of psych meds, but this was one time I was like ‘so taking an anti-psychotic is going to help get rid of this expressive dysphasia bullsh*t, and I can get back to doing something I absolutely love? Medication! Gimme Gimme Gimme!’ 😀
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Yeah, I don’t mind getting very detailed depending on who I’m talking to. I wasn’t always like that, though. I’ve opened up a lot over the last ten years.
I’m glad you decided to try some meds. I know most people don’t want them, for good reason, but sometimes it’s worth it so you can function the way you’d like.
By the way, I emailed you the first novelette in my series. I’d make this longer, but my last patient just got here.
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No worries, got it. I’ll try and have a read of it soon, thanks. 🙂
You mentioned Vampire sexuality, there’s a great lecture by Susan Williams you might be interested in checking out.
‘From Devourer of Man to the Sparklepire: Gender Sexuality and the Vampire’. Traces the history of the Vampire legend, and genre from the earliest Babylonian times through to the modern age, and looks at it as a juxtaposition of socio-historical attitudes towards gender and sexuality.
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Been fun to read your comments Emerald and Lorraine. I will attempt to read some of your writings, but the little I have looked at McDanno slash, makes me giggle and then soon freak out and have to back out 🙂 But I will make an effort. I think reading slash with Mick or Steve just “compromizes” my own daydreams. I don´t wanna share him…with anyone.
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I don’t have any fanfic up anymore, but what I publish is M/F erotic romance.
I can somehow seperate Mick the hot vamp I want to bite me, among other things, from Mick and Joseph.
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Thanks Paula 🙂 Please don’t read anything you feel uncomfortable with, not everyone likes to read erotic type fiction, regardless of the respective genders of the characters involved. I do appreciate you being willing to give the genre a go, and there are plenty of slash pieces out there that don’t involve explicit sex (including some of mine).
I suppose for me, apart from the fact that I don’t really fantasize about Alex’s characters in that way (or Alex himself for that matter), I can be very compartmentalised when I want to be. So I can separate off Mick the vampire, who I do think ‘Rah, sexy’ when he’s fully vamped, and Mick the character I slash with Josef Kostan. It’s like I have different sections in my brain for different aspects of the character, so I can quite easily watch something like the Police station scene, where Mick vamps out at that guy, and think ‘mmm, tasty, tasty vampire’, then turn around and write Mick & Josef as a couple, whilst reading about MickBeth or MickCora, and none of that feels confusing or muddled to me in anyway.
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Just gathering some responses from another ML slash writer & a couple of H50 slashers as well. I’ll email them to you soon. 🙂
Speaking in general one thing I have noticed with the differences between the Moonlight and H50 slash fandoms is that RPS (real person slash – ie slashing the actors themselves) does appear to be a lot more accepted in the H50 slash fandom, whereas the majority of those who have written Moonlight slash consider it a pretty big no-no. I think that might have something to do with the relative sizes of the fandoms though, the H50 slash fandom, being much larger than the Moonlight one, has a lot more diversity of attitudes simply because it has more people in it.
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Aloha 🙂
As a McDanno shipper with full force I’ll immediately send you answers on your questions 🙂 Mahalo one more time Claire (Emerald) for a hint 🙂
x
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Hey hello my Slash Sistah! Nice to see you over here ❤ You with McDanno is like me with Josef/Mick – total love & devotion.
Long may we slash our respective pairings ❤
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I’m a huge McDanno shipper – I didn’t know it existed until my daughter (who was 12 at the time)!!! told me about it while we were discussing our mutual adoration of the Supernatural series and I have been hooked ever since, to the point where my sleep is affected. Its like an obsession, I HAVE to read fanfic every night!! Sometimes you will find me reading till after 1am when I have to get up at 6 for work! I prefer slash fanfic but do enjoy a good piece of fluff as well. 😀 Almost all of my bookmarks are fav stories on the AO3 website.hehehe I don’t usually ‘share’ my love because its such a frowned upon part of fandom but there are a few of us on facebook with a special private group where we share and revel in our love of McDanno. And yes episodes like last week and this week give us a great amount of pleasure and fodder for a squeeeeeee fest. ♥
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Welcome to the community (the slash community that is), always nice to have another one on board 🙂 Our pairings differ, but I know what you mean about that obsession that just takes over. In my experience, slashers are some of the most passionate & devoted fans you’ll find. There are still slash fandoms dating back well over 20 years, many of the het shippers have up and left, the slashers are still there, still devoted, still reading, and writing, and creating up a storm. I think in many fandoms, to be a slasher you have to almost have an extra level of devotion to the show, it’s characters, the pairing (or pairings) you ship, and so on, otherwise it’s just not worth putting up with some of the shit we cop. If I didn’t absolutely love the characters I ship, chances are I would have just said ‘stuff it, it’s not worth it’ the first time someone really jumped on me for daring to be a slasher.
Just one thing, Slash & ‘Fluff’ aren’t separate. Slash is a specific term for a genre of fan fiction (& fan art, fan vidding), within that genre you have a lot of different types or fan fic, art, etc, and fluff is just one of those types. If I write a fluffy story (which I have, and do) it still counts as slash, same as if I write hurt/comfort, angst, kink, PWP (plot, what plot, known more commonly as porn without plot) or any other particular type of fan fic or art, etc, if it features two male characters in a romantic and/or sexual situation, then it all counts as ‘slash’. Does that make sense? 🙂
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Oopsie…I have used the term fluff for my posts occasionally. Now that you mentioned what it means, I think I was told that some time ago, but forgot. I guess I shouldn´t use is anymore. I used if for my “airier” light weight posting, since I post pics and Foyeur stories.
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Oh no, if you write something light and airy, more focused on fluffy type romance stuff, then call it ‘fluff’, because that’s what it is. It’s just that if it’s a light and airy fluffy romance that is focused on say Steve & Danno as a romantic and/or sexual pairing, then it’s also ‘slash’ as well. 🙂
Sorry, I’m not very good at explaining things sometimes.
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*Whew*…OK. sometimes using a foreign language causes unexpected misunderstandings 😀
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No worries 🙂
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It does 🙂 I used the wrong word when I said slash, I knew what I meant but yeah sometimes it hard to explain, if I was to be blunt I like a good first time, angst ridden story with lots of hot, hot sex 😀
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Funny, I think you just described around 50% of my Josef/Mick fics *LOL* (although not so sure on the ‘good’). When it comes to Steve/Danno, I will admit I don’t read a lot of fic for that pairing, but when I do I tend to be pretty fussy with first time stories, and how they take place. Either one of them just walking up to the other and planting a kiss, for no apparent reason, with absolutely zero lead in, and then they fall passionately into each other’s arms and proceed to have sex in the nearest office/janitor’s closet/police car/right there on the floor/etc etc – um, yeah, no. I like a bit more realistic character development with my sexy fun times, thank you very much. But then again, maybe I’m just weird that way. *LOL*
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I’m totally with you on that! So not weird at all lol 😀 I think I’m going to have to read some of those Josef/Mick fics!! hehehe
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Some articles & essays that might also be of help in writing your report. 🙂
http://fanlore.org/wiki/Slash
http://fanlore.org/wiki/Why_Slash
http://www.trickster.org/symposium/coltopic.html#gslash
(more specific links)
“Normal Female Interest in Men Bonking”: Selections from The Terra Nostra Underground and Strange Bedfellows
Edited and introduced by Shoshanna Green, Cynthia Jenkins and Henry Jenkins
http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/bonking.html
Slashing the Fiction of Queer Theory
Slash Fiction, Queer Reading, and Transgressing the Boundaries of Screen Studies, Representations, and Audiences
Frederik Dhaenens, Sofie Van Bauwel, Daniel Biltereyst
http://jci.sagepub.com/content/32/4/335.abstract
“Yearning void and infinite potential”: Online Slash Fandom As Queer Female Space.
Alexis Lothian, Kristina Busse, Robin Ann Reid
Click to access Lothian_QFS.pdf
Is Slash An Alternative Medium?” Queer” Heterotopias and the Role of Autonomous Media Spaces In Radical World Building
by Nathan Rambukkana
http://www.academia.edu/447982/Is_Slash_An_Alternative_Medium_Queer_Heterotopias_and_the_Role_of_Autonomous_Media_Spaces_In_Radical_World_Building
Slash Fanfiction: A Personal Essay
by Celandine Brandybuck
http://www.trickster.org/symposium/symp158.html
A Christian Perspective on Slash Fiction
by Marnie
http://www.trickster.org/symposium/symp165.htm
Why do I Like Slash?
Plain Answers from a Het Woman
by Dark Twin
http://www.trickster.org/symposium/symp164.htm
Gen and Slash, or Why I See One and Write the Other
by Morgan
http://www.trickster.org/symposium/symp69.html
Why I Write Slash
by Kass
http://www.trickster.org/symposium/symp15.htm
Goes to Motive
by Betty Plotnick
http://www.trickster.org/symposium/symp96.html
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Okay, so my stupid email doesn’t seem to want to work properly at the moment (server problems, again).
This is from my friend, Tamurile (her writer’s name). The other H50 slashers I spoke to should be sending you an email direct themselves 🙂 (I changed the wording of one of the questions slightly as well, just to make sure no one I spoke to got mixed up with whether or not you were asking about Alex or the characters – not that there was anything wrong with the way you worded it, just some of the people I’m speaking to have English as their second language, so I just wanted to make sure there were no misunderstandings. 🙂 )
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I am late to this topic but I saw it and had to comment on it. I want to say thank you foyeur for respecting the slash/ship community out there.
I myself have not written and fiction (yet) but I do enjoy reading them, and some of very good, and very well written. I have been reading a lot of the
H50 ship fiction out there and have no problems reading it. It just that there are some out there that are very rude to fans of shipping /and slash and I feel that is not fare
each to there own. Yours is the first that was very respectful thank you for that. Now as I said I have not written anything but I will confess that with MOONLIGHT when the
went off I did have some very naughty Mick and josef dreams of those two, and it really got hot when josef bit mick in fated to pretend. To me that is the sexist bite, or turnning see I have ever seen on tv, ever! I mean that. That was so sexy when josef laid him on that table. Did you also catch when josef almost bit mick on the neck at first but mick said to get off of him, and josef almost went for his Neck. that was so hot.
Now those dreams start again with H50. Yes after the show goes off I will admit to having some naughty dreams about Steve and danno. I swear somtimes when I watch the show those two have eye sex sometimes. you just have to catch it. I have read some good shipper fiction on these two and if you or anybody else know where I can read more let me know. I also known on youtube there are some that ship with their own vidoes that they make. They are very creative, and tell good stores, buy picking great songs and scenes using steve and danno. Check it out on youtube sometimes you will find some very good ones.
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To be honest Venia, I would not ever try anything on the subject again. First of all nobody really wanted to participate and I was told by most of the McDanno shippers that I do not know what I am talking about and they can’t agree with me on anything.
The nastiness out there, has escalated so much that I would not even dare to write anything about it ever again. Most people are taking themselves and their own shipping fraternity so seriously, that they no long have any room for fun to enjoying Hawaii Five-0 …….
Unfortunately I do not have links to any of the stories. I will try and get some info from some of my friends on here, that do read McDanno fanfic, to help you out. I myself do not have time to do reading of any nature at the moment and can’t even watch my favourite things on TV anymore, much less all the beautiful fan video’s out there…..
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OMG, I’m so sorry, that is ridiculous! I’m really sorry to hear you’ve been disrespected when you took the time to show respect for the slash community, which is more than what a lot of people out there will do. If certain shipper groups disagreed with what you had to say, there’s a way to do it without being completely disrespectful. On behalf of my community, I’d like to apologise for any negativity or hurt you’ve received.
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And if the McDanno shippers were so disagreeable with what you wrote, they were given plenty of opportunity to express their side of things by participating in the original Q&A you set up. They can’t blame you for just going on what you were given.
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