ratcreature | about Supernatural fanfic...

I'm not feeling particularly fannish about Supernatural, but I have watched most episodes, thus while I was bored I looked around for Supernatural fanfic to read. I was mostly interested in gen, and while of course I knew that there's Sam/Dean slash I was actually surprised how common it is, from my first impressions even more widespread than gen (though I could be wrong about that). And I just don't get it. Personally I just have a hard time seeing Sam/Dean slash.

It's not that I'm particularly squicked by sibling incest, but the story has to somehow work harder to make that kind of thing work than other pairings. Not only because it has to make me buy that they would act on a sexual attraction despite incest taboos, that is similar in a way to other "relationship obstacles" in romance stories, but because it has to make me buy that there would be attraction in the first place. With most pairings I can buy that the author simply has a character feel attraction, inappropriate or not, and then the story goes from there, but for me (and I suspect most people) thinking about close family members with whom you grew up with, like your own siblings or parents and sex together is, well, sort of icky. Not just incestuous sex, but even the fact that your sibling or parent has sex with anyone, that's the kind of thing you don't want to contemplate in much detail. At least I don't, and I suspect I'm not alone in that.

I tried reading a couple of Sam/Dean stories, but they seemed to be much like regular slash in the way that it assumes that the reader buys the possibility for attraction between the guys in the first place. I don't quite get what makes this plausible for Sam/Dean shippers just from watching the series, and yet it seems very common. Which leaves me puzzled. I looked whether there was an essay on this pairing at

ship_manifesto to provide me with some insight, but there doesn't seem to be one yet. So does anyone know of any Supernatural meta that would explain to me where the Sam/Dean shippers are coming from?

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I think it's just a question of availability.

We have characters who are attractive, we want to see them in sexual situations, we look around and pick whatever is the most intense relationship one can find.

I think it's less a question of more people liking brothercest, but that are just more shows that offer the potential for brothercest. Top of my head, Num3rs, Supernatural, Prison Break and My Name is Earl all shows that center around one central brother relationship. Num3rs is one year old, the other three all came out at the same time.

If you think about it, there was a rush in canon incest and semi-incest of the het kind right before that. Simon/River UST Firefly, Billy/Brenda (fool blooded siblings) from Six Feet Under, Shannon/Boone Fauxincest on Lost, Veronica/Duncan "We thought it was incest" on Veronica Mars, some pairing on Carnivale, even Whitney/Chad (half siblings as far as we and they nkow) on the soap opera Passions.

Maybe incest is the new black. Maybe most other type of scandalous relationships have been exhausted and are considered old news at this point and suddenly there is a push for incest or incest-y type of pairings on tv. In canon!

But yeah, was incest really all that rare even before that? I'm thinking Luthorcest here...

Me, I'm kinda attracted to whatever strikes me as an intense relationship. Another definitive advantage of sibling relationships from a writing POV is that it's more acceptable for siblings to be nasty to each other and still stick together. If they were "just" best friends one would eventually wonder why they don't just go their seperate ways or why they ever bothered liking each other in the first place. But if there is family loyalty it makes more sense that a lot more would be forgiven or glossed over (and I'm thinking canon here. Things that actually show up on screen).

It would generally be a worthy meta to talk about the differences between brothercest and father/son cest. I don't have that many fandoms, but at least Smallvile and The X-Files had father/son to some extent.

I'm guessing that the key difference is that the brothercest pairings are considered more acceptable as a potential romantic options. While Luthorcest is mainly written for just the mindfuck.

I admit I like 'cest mainly for the mindfuck. I'm all about them having bad endings and the characters torturing themselves over it and being unhappy.

I'd say... I think if we look at the last five-six years of tv fandoms, and compare it to the ten-fifteen years before that? We'd find a lot more incest pairings in the former. Canonically *and* fanonically.

You're right, though, that brothercest -- and sibling hetcest, though to an intriguingly lesser degree -- are considered 'safer.' Less fucked-up. It makes me... want to do another poll. Which I won't. BUT SOMEONE SHOULD. Um.

Oh God, don't let me do another meta post before I answer these COMMENTS...

I think at least in fadom it's about breaking more and more taboos. I still remember the very first slash stories in the X-Files fandom. When there was big drama around "OMG, what is slash? Why would anybdoy write it? It is morally ok to write it? Is it morally ok to like it?". At this point slash has become a commodity. Then came the RPS trend, again with "What is it? Is it morally ok to write it? Is it morally ok to like it?". Incest might just be the most recent wave of people wanting to be more and more daring.

And the truth is that a lot of people thinking that them being more radical and breaking more taboos automatically makes them smarter or deeper somehow.

Another angle is of course incest in "real" literature. In school I had to read dozens of turn of the century and ealier German authors and they were full of incest stories or things that the literary critique interpreated as incest longings (Kafka for example or Max Frisch's "Homo Faber" about accidental father/daughter incest; considered a modern classic). Plus it helps that one of my most recent most favourite scifi books, Jeff Noon's "Vurt" features a full fledged brother/sister sex relationship that is the core motivation for the hero (well aside from the sexually ambigious hero worship of the group leader, but that's a different story).

Oh God, don't let me do another meta post before I answer these COMMENTS...

Wheeee, Te meta is always good :D

Another angle is of course incest in "real" literature.

God, yes. The amount of incest lit I read in college ... Graham Swift's Waterland comes to mind especially. And of course I'm blanking on everything else, but there was quite a bit. I think that probably dulled my squick!factor, but also made me expect fandom's brand of incest to be treated in the same really grim, bleak way it shows up in books.

but also made me expect fandom's brand of incest to be treated in the same really grim, bleak way it shows up in books.

I think that's unlikely to happen though, especially if the incest is the main paring in a fandom and it's more of a "buddies" than an "enemies" slash set-up like in Supernatural. It's true that there's some grim and bleak fanfic, but in my experience the overwhelming amount of slash is romance with happily ever after at least as an option, no matter the amount of angst the characters have to get through before. And that even for pairings like Harry/Snape or Harry/Draco. or look at the existence of Mulder/Krycek curtain!fic... ;)

Maybe incest is the new black. Maybe most other type of scandalous relationships have been exhausted and are considered old news at this point and suddenly there is a push for incest or incest-y type of pairings on tv. In canon!

Heh, this reminds me of a few years ago, SNL had a fake ad for Friends, saying that the show was going to cross the one romantic boundary it hadn't .... Ross/Monica incest. And then a year or two later the show had an episode where they'd accidentally made out in the dark as teenagers.

The OC has also had lots of faux-incest.

There is also George Michael and Maebe on Arrested Development who are cousins. Of course the first pairing in that way are probably Dukes of Hazzard.

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