"Anyone who had a heart..."
There has been a fair bit of meta in SGA fandom of late touching on the issue of stories that lack heart or that are in some way emotionless or dispassionate or fail to move. In nearly every fandom I've been in, I've been told this about my stories, so it's been something I've been thinking about for years. I have this whole huge theory that I won't bore you with, but here's one piece of it:
I think one of the issues underlying this is disagreement over exactly which subtexts a slash story is meant to make explicit. Much of the emotional content of the show is subtextual, just like the homoerotic subtext - it's in the looks, the actions, but rarely stated unequivocally in the dialogue. To use an example from SGA, one of the major McKay/Zelenka moments is in The Siege, when they shake hands and McKay asks Zelenka to keep an eye on his city. Stated baldly, that's not much of a moment, but those who've seen it know there's a lot of emotion there. The emotion is not made explicit in text; the significance is in the context and the details, the richness of it read between the lines. We don't need the emotions to be stated out loud, and we're all slashers so we usually all take similar interpretations of a given facial expression, of a particular hesitant pause. That's rarely where the disagreement lies.
All slashers make the homoerotic subtext of their canon explicit, but not all think it's appropriate to also make the emotional subtext explicit. I'm one of them-- to me the degree of emotional expressiveness in canon is inseparable from the character. To me, keeping in character means keeping the emotions of the characters at the same level they are on the show, which is mostly not explicitly stated, mostly between the lines. I assume that readers will get the emotional subtext the same way they do on the show-- from the characters' actions, from the looks I put on their faces, etc. The heart is mostly in the 'manly handshake' moments, as it is in the show. This is not exactly a risk-free way of writing emotion or passion, because it means interpreting the emotional aspect of a story is, at least in part, up to the reader, but to me, it's necessary to stay close to the canonical representation of the character.
To other slashers, part and parcel of making the sexual subtext explicit is also making the emotional subtext explicit. In this view, the emotional subtext is inseparable from the sexual subtext, and there's no point making the sexual explicit without also making the emotional explicit. Without emotional explicitness, the story is only half there. If you say it with a manly handshake, in other words, you've said nothing. Slash is supposed to make all that text; that's what slash is for. But making the emotional explicit is not risk-free either-- it risks alienating those readers who will find the emotional explicitness out of character. I'm one of those readers who will be put off by this approach, and there's very little I can do about that. For most of my BSOs, if they start talking (or thinking) too baldly or explicitly about how they feel, then I won't recognise them as the character I see on the show.
In the privacy of my own head, I refer to these two kinds of readers as The Warm Fuzzies and The Cold Pricklies, but those names are a bit misleading. The Cold Pricklies want to get gooey feelings of love and eternal devotion from their slash as much as anyone, and believe me, I crave nothing more than a story that can make me go all mushy and melty inside. But our melt-worthy goo has to be delivered mostly on the canonical/subtextual level of emotionality (or, as Speranza put it, "meat you chew yourself, not pre-chewed"). The Warm Fuzzies, on the other hand, appreciate subtext and 'manly handshake' moments in slash just as much as the Cold Pricklies-- after all, they appreciate them in canon-- but their warm fuzzies have to be delivered on the textual level, alongside the sexuality. They don't like having to chew down through the surface of a story to get to the yummy bits.
So while I disagree with some of the commentators that the (mostly unnamed) stories have no heart, I think there's a very logical reason for the disagreement, which is that readers (and obviously, writers) divide over whether the emotional expressiveness of the characters is a non-negotiable part of the canon characterisation, or if that's one of the aspects of canon that slash does and should move from subtext to text. A lot of readers are happy either way, but many are hard-wired into one view or another. If they're Warm Fuzzies, they're primarily receptive to emotion delivered textually, and are put off if the emotion is primarily on the subtextual level. If they're Cold Pricklies, they're primarily receptive to emotion delivered subtextually, and are put off if the emotion is primarily on the textual level.
For writers, that's a damn tough divide to bridge, and most writers, no matter what side they're on, are hit-and-miss about bridging it. They often either leave out the heart of the story for those who expect the emotion to be made explicit, or cross the line on characterisation for those who expect the emotion will be mostly between the lines. In my own experience, bridging the divide is less a balancing act and more alchemy, something that will just happen if all the right plot elements are there, and won't if they're not. I've been trying to puzzle it out for years, with mixed success at best. It helps to stop and think about how you're delivering your emotion, and who is not going to be able to receive it, but I'm the first to admit that it's not always possible to see, and even if I can see it, not always possible to change.
I suspect this is one of fandom's faultlines, and when disagreement over a story measures on the Richter scale, this is one of the underlying issues I look for. People just differ in this regard, and as far as I can tell, they are rarely, if ever, persuaded to switch sides on it. Clearly I'm writing this from a Cold Prickly perspective, but I sincerely hope I've presented the Warm Fuzzy view accurately. There should be no value judgments assigned to being either a Warm Fuzzy or a Cold Prickly, and I see no reason why there would be-- in my opinion it all boils down to something as abstract as two different assumptions about what aspects of canonical subtext the genre textualises. We make plenty of value judgments later, when stories move us or don't move us, but in my opinion at least, this is one of the places where those values originate.
I think one of the issues underlying this is disagreement over exactly which subtexts a slash story is meant to make explicit. Much of the emotional content of the show is subtextual, just like the homoerotic subtext - it's in the looks, the actions, but rarely stated unequivocally in the dialogue. To use an example from SGA, one of the major McKay/Zelenka moments is in The Siege, when they shake hands and McKay asks Zelenka to keep an eye on his city. Stated baldly, that's not much of a moment, but those who've seen it know there's a lot of emotion there. The emotion is not made explicit in text; the significance is in the context and the details, the richness of it read between the lines. We don't need the emotions to be stated out loud, and we're all slashers so we usually all take similar interpretations of a given facial expression, of a particular hesitant pause. That's rarely where the disagreement lies.
All slashers make the homoerotic subtext of their canon explicit, but not all think it's appropriate to also make the emotional subtext explicit. I'm one of them-- to me the degree of emotional expressiveness in canon is inseparable from the character. To me, keeping in character means keeping the emotions of the characters at the same level they are on the show, which is mostly not explicitly stated, mostly between the lines. I assume that readers will get the emotional subtext the same way they do on the show-- from the characters' actions, from the looks I put on their faces, etc. The heart is mostly in the 'manly handshake' moments, as it is in the show. This is not exactly a risk-free way of writing emotion or passion, because it means interpreting the emotional aspect of a story is, at least in part, up to the reader, but to me, it's necessary to stay close to the canonical representation of the character.
To other slashers, part and parcel of making the sexual subtext explicit is also making the emotional subtext explicit. In this view, the emotional subtext is inseparable from the sexual subtext, and there's no point making the sexual explicit without also making the emotional explicit. Without emotional explicitness, the story is only half there. If you say it with a manly handshake, in other words, you've said nothing. Slash is supposed to make all that text; that's what slash is for. But making the emotional explicit is not risk-free either-- it risks alienating those readers who will find the emotional explicitness out of character. I'm one of those readers who will be put off by this approach, and there's very little I can do about that. For most of my BSOs, if they start talking (or thinking) too baldly or explicitly about how they feel, then I won't recognise them as the character I see on the show.
In the privacy of my own head, I refer to these two kinds of readers as The Warm Fuzzies and The Cold Pricklies, but those names are a bit misleading. The Cold Pricklies want to get gooey feelings of love and eternal devotion from their slash as much as anyone, and believe me, I crave nothing more than a story that can make me go all mushy and melty inside. But our melt-worthy goo has to be delivered mostly on the canonical/subtextual level of emotionality (or, as Speranza put it, "meat you chew yourself, not pre-chewed"). The Warm Fuzzies, on the other hand, appreciate subtext and 'manly handshake' moments in slash just as much as the Cold Pricklies-- after all, they appreciate them in canon-- but their warm fuzzies have to be delivered on the textual level, alongside the sexuality. They don't like having to chew down through the surface of a story to get to the yummy bits.
So while I disagree with some of the commentators that the (mostly unnamed) stories have no heart, I think there's a very logical reason for the disagreement, which is that readers (and obviously, writers) divide over whether the emotional expressiveness of the characters is a non-negotiable part of the canon characterisation, or if that's one of the aspects of canon that slash does and should move from subtext to text. A lot of readers are happy either way, but many are hard-wired into one view or another. If they're Warm Fuzzies, they're primarily receptive to emotion delivered textually, and are put off if the emotion is primarily on the subtextual level. If they're Cold Pricklies, they're primarily receptive to emotion delivered subtextually, and are put off if the emotion is primarily on the textual level.
For writers, that's a damn tough divide to bridge, and most writers, no matter what side they're on, are hit-and-miss about bridging it. They often either leave out the heart of the story for those who expect the emotion to be made explicit, or cross the line on characterisation for those who expect the emotion will be mostly between the lines. In my own experience, bridging the divide is less a balancing act and more alchemy, something that will just happen if all the right plot elements are there, and won't if they're not. I've been trying to puzzle it out for years, with mixed success at best. It helps to stop and think about how you're delivering your emotion, and who is not going to be able to receive it, but I'm the first to admit that it's not always possible to see, and even if I can see it, not always possible to change.
I suspect this is one of fandom's faultlines, and when disagreement over a story measures on the Richter scale, this is one of the underlying issues I look for. People just differ in this regard, and as far as I can tell, they are rarely, if ever, persuaded to switch sides on it. Clearly I'm writing this from a Cold Prickly perspective, but I sincerely hope I've presented the Warm Fuzzy view accurately. There should be no value judgments assigned to being either a Warm Fuzzy or a Cold Prickly, and I see no reason why there would be-- in my opinion it all boils down to something as abstract as two different assumptions about what aspects of canonical subtext the genre textualises. We make plenty of value judgments later, when stories move us or don't move us, but in my opinion at least, this is one of the places where those values originate.