Since you like chicks, do you look at yourself naked in the mirror all the time?

[fan_elune]

So. greenie_breizh and I just watched Chasing Amy, as the quote right here might have hinted. When we saw the last goodbye scenes, I could not help but once again notice that I was more touched by the bit with Banky than the bit with Alyssa, and it ties up quite well with stuff I've been wondering about lately, due to a couple of discussions that were going on on cgwriting's and khohen1's LJs regarding slash.

I've always felt more at ease writing male characters than female, for some reason. They just come to me much more easily. Quite in the same way, there is something about well-written slash that is so very interesting. Something in a bond between two men, instead of being between two women or a woman and a man, is much more interesting to me. It seems to resonate within me much more. And I just have to wonder why that is. My hypothesis is, that it's because a male-male bond (should it be love or friendship or what-not, this goes beyond slash actually) is something that I cannot by definition experience. Hence being more interested in it.

greenie_breizh remarked that another factor might be how unconventional male-male relationships are - even friendship, says she. It might play a role, but I remain to be convinced. I think the "unknown" factor plays much more in it. But I wonder whether there's anything else in it. Or maybe it is that women are on the whole less well written than men - with some wonderful exceptions of course! Far from me to think that women are not beautifully portrayed on a daily basis... but maybe they're still, on the whole, given less thought than men.

But then where does my difficulty writing them come from? It's not that I can't - it's that I find less pleasure, less interest, less challenge in it. Is this it then? A challenge thing? Or are they on the contrary more difficult to write because they are too close to me and I can't step back enough? I just don't know.

Have you noticed how my thoughts are going in circles and not getting anywhere? People, I need your input here. What are your thoughts? How do *you* view slash? What are *you* more interested in reading, and why do you think that is? Can you suggest any reason why interaction between men is so very interesting to me? Anything is welcome.

Very slightly related: I watched The Doctor Dances. Which was a brilliant episode. So the_swordman, did you mean "Captain Jack" when you were telling me of Doctor Who and the first male bisexual character on British telly (though so far, he hasn't said he is bisexual, it's just the Doctor making assumptions)? (And might I point out the irony of Rose calling him Captain Jack... especially for those of us who have loved firesignwriter's Moonverse series.)

Comments

[hardlyfatal.livejournal.com]

Funny, we're just discussing this at khylarenelf's journal.

When I write a character, it's always more about the aspects of their personality that I can relate to, and thus render more realistically. According to some, I have a pretty good grip on Buffy, on Haldir, on Miroku, on Norrington, blah blah. On some level, there is something of them in me, something that calls to me so that I can just channel them. Gender doesn't matter. But for me, it never really did-- I fall for the soul, not what the soul is wearing :)

[fan-elune.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say that I base my choices on gender either. It just so happens that I tend to feel for male characters easier. Even when I write female characters, they tend to put up a front to hide their weaknesses... rather like a lot of male characters. Faith, Kate (Lockley, from Angel - no, I still haven't given up on that LotR crossover involving Faith and Kate!), Ivanova, and the list could go on.

Now I wonder why I wrote Willow so often, for so long. Not that I won't write her anymore, mind you... Just not as predominantly. I think she was probably linked with a less mature phase in my writing... and I'm getting off topic here.

Thinking on what I write these days, indeed, I never write "weak" female characters. (The inverted commas are there because of course they still have weaknesses. They're just not what I call weak.) Very seldom do I write weak male characters, too...

I think I might just be trapping myself into all this reflexion and all those questions, by clinging to the labels of gender. As you say, it's not what the soul is wearing that matters.