Sometime reasonable wins...

[maygra]

If you have not tripped over heatherly's essay elsewhere, I encourage you to read it.

You know, if that's the sort of thing you like to read.

I say this in full admission of fact that I disagree, or rather, approach differently a couple of points in the second half of her essay -- primarily from a ideological and practical POV as opposed to disagreeing with her en toto of a writer's responsibility. I'm pretty sure I'll have additional thoughts on that in a bit, if I can get my thoughts organized in such a way as to present them as less contention than perspective.

Comments

[trinity_clare]

Curiously, when a thoughtful SPN author writes an incest pairing with John, much more of the fallout is addressed, and SPN fandom in general tends to react much more negatively to unrealistic incest fics with John. Because I've seen John/Dean, etc., done very well, but never healthily (there are lots of bad fics out there where John and Dean live happily ever after, but that's not what I'm talking about). Not everyone's cup of tea, obviously, and not very much mine either, but it's a thought to throw out there.

[maygra.livejournal.com]

Well, I think in that case it's the power (implicit or otherwise) imbalance that sets people off. Dean and Sam are seen in the balance of all things as more equal whereas the entire issue with John/Dean (or John/Sam) implies a great many things about John that people aren't as willing to accept or by into. The whole premise of "suspension of disbelief" is predicated by "willing".

i.e. it's easier for me to buy into the idea that Dean (being the co-dependent, approval junkie that he is) might actually respond to overtures from John or even initiate something if he thought his father had need of it than it is for me to believe that John would take advantage of Dean that way or otherwise surrender to even a hidden weakness unless he was possessed -- in which case it isn't really John and the coercion is explicit.

[trinity_clare]

True, very true. I've also seen that issue addressed in Sam/Dean fics, especially when they're a certain age and Dean has a bigger maturity gap.