pensnest | A little attempt at self-analysis

Well, now.

turps33 was wondering where the pop meta is... I dunno that I'm up to starting off any topics that fit the definition she and

withdiamonds have suggested, but I have been doing some vague musings about writing, and possibly someone else might like to muse along with me? If we stick to popslash, we'll all know who we're talking about.

I've been thinking about this for a while: I think it stems from one of the Writing Memes that goes around every so often. There was a question in there along these lines: which of your stories is the most revealing?

You see, I never used to think I was *in* my stories. When I was a Trekkie it wasn't really the kind of discussion that tended to happen, at least, not between Dataphiles, and I didn't really think about it, I just wrote what seemed to me to be something that was worth writing. But of late, I have at least begun to notice that I am indeed in there.

It can be in the simple things - like, if I have Justin admiring the pretty picture Lance makes when he's eating a strawberry, that's mostly me in there thinking it would be awful nice to see Lance eating a strawberry. Yes. I mean, I think it's obvious that if I'm trying to present a hot image, I need to believe it's a hot image. Why are so many of us delighted by fics involving masturbation, especially masturbation-with-an-observer? I'm pretty sure that's the same kind of thing.

The next step down, though, is to notice the way my own preferences come through. See, when I put Chris and Lance together, it's Lance making the first move. When I put Lance and Justin together, Lance is the more dominant of the two. Haven't really looked at the other pairings I've written, but it's clear to me that in these two cases, I want Lance to take the lead because essentially I see him as the 'weaker' of the two. With Chris, Lance is at a disadvantage because of age, mostly, and 'life experience'. With Justin, hmm, I think I *have* to see Justin as the less proactive partner in order to achieve some kind of Cosmic Balance. I mean, he's **Justin Timberlake**.

I think this is probably because I don't like/feel entirely comfortable with inequality in relationships, and have to do whatever it takes to balance the relationship, if there is an imbalance to begin with. (I suspect that for other people, this would actually take the form of deliberately *emphasizing* the inequality and exploring it.)

Also, I don't, I think, write pairings in which they have sexually immutable roles (the nearest to a definite Top/Bottom distinction is in Lambs—where admittedly, Lance is always bossy, but not always on top!). I like to think that my boys, whichever boys they be, take turns topping. Or, well, maybe they don't take *turns*, exactly, they just do whichever they prefer at the time. Comes back to the same thing—I don't like the idea of relationships in which there is a set pattern. They have to share stuff—sex here, I suppose, standing for all kinds of other aspects of the relationship.

Another point: I find it easier to write explicit slash than I ever found writing explicit het*. (This is something that cropped up in one of the slash panels at Redemption.) And here, I'm pretty sure it's precisely because I'm not obviously involved in the scene—I am, as a female, necessarily, an observer and not plausibly a participant. I found it difficult to get the balance, in het scenes, between writing something that I would find a turn-on, and revealing too much entirely personal information. As a reader, too, I required much more precise targeting when reading het: if the female partner has a reaction that I don't share, or enjoys something that leaves me indifferent, it's harder to remain involved. Again, with slash, I'm not 'in there' in the same way. And because I'm an observer, because I can't identify closely with either male, I can identify with both. I think perhaps that it comes back to the disliking of set patterns...

So there's a modicum of self-examination. Thoughts, anyone? How is it for you?

* strictly speaking, I think I'm mostly a writer who prefers not to get too explicit, but sometimes, well, sometimes the porn *is* the story.