Sometimes I Want to Smack People for Shit Like This

[liz_marcs]

h/t to musesfool

I love it when people say: ...why is it that slash fanfiction seems to be the most well-written? Not to say there's no good het fics, and there's even the occasional femslash gem, but as a whole the best writers tend to be the slash ones ^_^;;; [sic for emoticon] Any thoughts as to why this is? Or feel free to disagree and say het/girly slash is 10x betetr [sic for spelling] than any male/male slash you've ever read.

Well, fuck you very much. Way to show how narrow-minded you are. And by the way, anyone who needs to use emoticons to get their point across at the awesomeness is slash is not someone who is making a convincing argument for me.

A lot of the comments are even more annoying, although atozmom and glossing try valiantly to be reasonable by pointing out that the OP is making blanket generalizations based on maybe limited exposure to het/gen/femslash fic.


I have learned much about me in reading the comments. Check out the following:

• Het writers are younger and slash writers are older
  My Response: I'm pretty damn sure I'm older than the OP and most of the commenters. Anyone who makes such insane generalizations about whole groups of people based on their writing preferences (which in my experience has shit-all to do with what they actually read or their attitudes in RL) can't possibly have a whole lot of life experience.
  
  
• Het writers haven't been writing very long and slash writers have been writing much longer
  My Response: I've been getting paid for what I write in RL since I was 17. I have a university degree in journalism. I write fanfiction for fun and practice. I am hardly a fricken newbie on the writing front. This doesn't make me better than anyone else, but it sure as shit gives me the right to smack you upside the head for making such a statement.
  
  
• Slash eliminates Mary Sues and Self-Inserts, unlike in het
  My Response: *hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha* Right. Just because a character isn't an OC, doesn't mean they can't be Sued by piss-poor writing. It's simply impossible to turn flawed or grey canon male characters into perfect little woobies in slash fanfic. Right Draco, Spike, Xander, Rodney, [insert male character here]? I think you're getting the picture.
  
  
• Pre-existing canon couples are boring
  My Response: At least this response indicates that she's only interested in conventional pairings on those rare occassions she graces a het writer with her eyeballs. I have an entire FList that really, really argues against that. Not to mention they blow that bullshit arguement right out of the water. Maybe if you added "in my opinion" that would've made a hell of a lot more sense.
  
  
• Het writers don't think outside the box, unlike creative slashers
  My Response: The hilarious part is this same comment includes this statement right above the "don't think outside the box" comment: "You've got the bottom boy, and the top boy, the hawtness, and that's basically it."
  
  So what was that about thinking outside the box again? LJ user, you not only think inside the box, you are the box. Explain to me how you didn't just put all slash writers in the same fucking box with that statement. You wanna get outside the box sometime in your writing life? Try an interesting plot beyond bottom boy, top boy, and "hawtness." You'd be amazed what an actual plot can do for gen/het/femslash/boislash.
  
  
• Het writers aren't as quirky or creative as slash writers
  My Response: Have no words for this one. A shipper story is a shipper story, people. Genitalia of the characters involved doesn't matter. No, really, it doesn't. What makes any story quirky or creative is characterization, plot (even drabbles have plots), use of language...y'know, things like that.
  
  Ship stories are a genre of fanfiction and noting more than a label we put on fanfiction for our convenience. Gen/Het/Femslash/Boislash are a subgenre to let people know about the shipper (or lack thereoff) content. This is not a sign of the writer's (or anyone's) creativity or quirky-ness. Anyone who thinks so really needs to meet more RL people, preferably people who do creative and fun things that don't involve writing. Some of the most quirky and creative people I know couldn't string a sentence together if their lives depended on it.
  
  
• Het writers are really writing romance novels, unlike slash writers
  My Response: Good to know. Stupid me, I thought I wrote mysteries, horror, science fiction, speculative fiction, ghost stories, and adventure. No romance, though. Not even a hint of romance. Not even a sniff of romance. Or do you count some very rare and very vague hints of sex occuring in one story with serious-ass consequences as "romance?" Because if you do, we need to sit down and define what you mean by "romance."
  
  Obviously I need to "graduate" to writing romance if I ever want my stories to be taken seriously in the het side of fandom. I'll get right on that het smut-o-ramma that all my fellow het writers say I should be writing. It's so sad. They're starting to make fun of me on the playground and everything. I'll never be a real girl until I start typing with one hand.
  
  And while I'm getting on turning myself into a romance writer, let's talk about all those slash writers who very clearly are not writing romance. The correct term is "schmoop." That's not romance at all. Nope. Nothing to see here. Let's move it along, because god knows you don't want a list of slash writers who blow this little argument right out of the water, do you?
  
  
• Slash writers work harder at turning canon het characters gay while keeping them in character
  My Response: Unh, wot? You can have perfectly in-character slash. You also can have perfectly in-character gen, het, and femslash. But let's be honest here, no fanfiction is 100% in character. They're not our characters. All fanfic writers do is speculate the following: "If X, then possibly Y. Maybe we could toss some D and F while we're at it. Mix it up. What do you get? Here's what I think."
  
  Now, some characters you can slash easier than others (For example, I argue Xander can be slashed fairly easily, others disagree.) However, if there are a million slash stories where a het character has always been sekritly gay and pisses all over that character's past relationships with members of the opposite sex as somehow not being "real." Newsflash: That's not in-character. Worse, it's simply lazy writing. At least make a "they're bi" argument. At least give me a hint of how they finally climbed the banks of De Nile to try a same-sex relationship. If you're going to claim that "slash writers work harder," then show me that work.
  
  By the way, the same argument applies to canon gay characters who suddenly decide to try a het relationship. I'm not letting anyone off the hook for this one. *kicks the shit out of a few post-'Chosen' het Willow stories I've read.*
  
  
• 'Cause girls are squicky
  Ahhhhh, the classic argument that gets tossed around in every discussion about het v. slash. It doesn't actually argue anything, but it does piss me the hell off. Well, me and my squicky cunt would like to thank you for calling 50% of the human race "squicky." I'm sure you'd like to argue that all girls should not only not be heard, but we shouldn't even be seen, because clearly in your world the only people worth a damn are males. Too bad the human race would die out in a single generation if it weren't for us "squicky" females. Even if science ever progresses to the point where the uterus isn't necessary for reproduction, I can't imagine that the reproductive process would be easier. It sure as hell won't be as much fun.
  

This is why I stay the hell away from debates like this. It only pisses me off because you know — you just know — it's going to end with someone responding in a most annoyed manner and next thing you know someone is tossing around the "homophobe" and "hive vagina" labels. Plus, I'd start a flamewar and make lots and lots of enemies. I'm a busy woman. I don't have time to get into it with people over stupid crap like this.

Now, to be fair, some people are making good arguments in this thread, but those that do also point out that slash has its own problems and isn't completely "clean" of the aspirations tossed on het (and by extention, femslash and gen).

When it comes to fanfic (when it comes to anything, really) Sturgeon's Law applies. No matter what, 99% of it is crap. That goes for het/gen/femslash/boislash in equal measure. As for whether that golden 1% is also crap comes down to personal opinion and tastes. Nothing more.

Now, do I think there's a slight bias against gen and het writers?

Well, yeah. I think there is. I've read a million arguments like the one above that basically infantalizes gen and het writers or somehow argues that these writers are somehow "lesser" than their slash bretheren and sisteren. Outside of certain militantly het corners of fandom, I've rarely seen the same argument in reverse. Yet, this argument gets thrown at gen and het writers openly and frequently and it's rare for someone to respond because they know they'll walk right into a buzzsaw if they do. Even then, they have to do it with a billion disclaimers to "prove" we're not raging homophobes in real life.

No, it's not fucking fair, but them's the breaks.

But is there an overwhelming bias? Well, hate to shred my shroud of victimhood here, but no, it's really not the overwhelming bias that most gen and het writers make it out to be. But constantly seeing comments like this crop up (at least once or twice a week by my count), complete with the girlish squeal of "ewwwww vaginas!" or "ewwwww het!" can give you the illusion that there is an overwhelming bias against gen/het/femslash.

I think, however, I've seen a bit of a backlash. There are a few slash writers out there that are starting to argue that they write "characters" and are not "slash writers" (in short, rejecting the label outright) because they think it's too limiting.

Your starting to see gen writers organize themselves and ask What about the children? "What about us?" Hell, there's even a gen-only fanfiction com here on LJ that's relatively new.

I think a lot of that backlash is because too many people, het/gen/femslash/boislash are sick and tired of seeing crap like this come up again and again, sort of like a never-ending circle of wank where the same arguments are re-hashed over and over and all we get to show for it are virtual bloody noses.

I think the key to remember (even if I have a hardtime remembering it like in this case) is that such crap only comes from a certain segment of any fandom. A lot of purely slash writers don't even agree with the above statements, any more than any gen/het/femslash writer does.

I've found, however, that decent writing, plotting, and characterization can actually overcome a lot. I have a ton of slash writers mutually friended. I have a ton of het writers mutually friended. Dude, I'm proud of that. It's the best argument I've got that labels are just that...labels. Good stories and good writing (or what you think is are good stories and good writing) conquers a hell of a lot. We've all got something to say in our stories, and we've all got the right to make the argument as we see fit within those stories. No one has to agree, but it's rare that I've wasted my time by listening (or reading...hell, you know what I mean).

Sorry about the tl;dr rant, but I needed to get it off my chest.

Comments

So that's Insane Troll Logic

[bigsciencybrain.livejournal.com]

People really make those arguments? They don't even make any sense.

*retreats to her tiny corner of teh internet where there are fields of flowers and bunnies*

*dies laughing*

[bigsciencybrain.livejournal.com]

Quite a few of the comments from those who agree that "slash is the BEST!!1!!" have oodles of netspeak, bad grammar, lack of proper spelling, etc. *giggles*

Re: *dies laughing*

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

That cracked me the hell up. Better writers =/= netspeak.

I fear clicking on the link because my rant gathered comments. The original OP probably has people getting into fist-fights by now.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

I don't even know what possesed me to comment. I must be hormonal. (Or, I guess ten years old according that that post.)

Personally, I think gen is the hardest to write of all because ohmygawd, an actual plot is required. And ze plot is ze hardness.

I could have writeen a wtf response to almost every post on there, but I do have to work for a living.


And het is atomatically easier to write? I tend to think Spike/Angel is a lot simpler than, say, Riley/Darla.

[marenfic.livejournal.com]

(I totally want to see Riley/Darla-- I even have a plot bunny that will never get written!)

[bastardsnow.livejournal.com]

Girls are not squicky. Girls are awesome. I love girls, *and* their vaginas. They're quite pleasing to me, actually.

Also, the idea that your stories are romance are really really funny. I mean there have on occasion been romantical *aspects* to them (very small, minor, teeny aspects), but romances? Hardly.

Heh. This was funny. Thanks for entertaining me while i'm at work!

[rileysaplank.livejournal.com]

*starts beanging his head against the wall*

I hate these types of arguments and have always stayed well clear of them (though I'm on the fringes of fanfiction so I tend to hear about them through you anyway). And I would totally F*** up their arguments as I write het and slash (with the very rare femslash and even rarer gen fic thrown in for good measure).

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

These sorts of arguments just go totally over my head. They are just so childish and pointless. You write what you want to write, you read what you want to read, criticise particular fics if you like, but what's the gorram point of arguing whether one sub-genre is better than another? Any argument that begins 'all slash/het/gen writers...' is not worth reading any further. And when it gets to the 'girls=squicky' thing, yeah, that is kinda worrying.

I wonder if where this 'slash is the only good fanfic' rubbish comes from is the fact that canon is always het and/or gen, and come to that, so is all the 'deuterocanonical' stuff, the comics, tie-in novels, etc. So people who want slash only have fanfic to turn to, and so some of them get mighty big chips on their shoulders when 'their' medium is 'invaded' by the otherwise dominant paradigms. Not that that makes it any less senseless, but maybe it's an explanation.

[jgracio.livejournal.com]

Not that that makes it any less senseless, but maybe it's an explanation.

As more entertainment with homosexual protagonists is made this justification will be harder to use.

Why can't people just come out and say that slash turns them on? Why the need to justify it with fancy reasons?

[jgracio.livejournal.com]

That person is making the mistake of confusing what she prefers for what is best. Just how many het versus slash stories has she read?

And that girls are icky comment is funny, especially since from what I understand, chances are, the writer and most of the readers are of the female persuasion. I doubt she meant it in a RL sense, the kind of woman who would say that in a RL sense would probably never read slash.

I wonder just how old the thread starter is...

[huzzlewhat.livejournal.com]

I tend to roll my eyes at those types of discussions because I do feel that it goes both ways -- there are tons of people out there arguing that slash is inferior, that slash all just about the badly written porn, and het/gen/whatever is intrinsically better and the writers are better.

I think that it's a case of proximity blinders... whether you prefer het or slash, you're going to go through the real work it takes to find the good stuff among the dross. And eventually, you get to the point where you know the good forums and the ones to avoid, you know the good writers, and know whose recs to follow. And frankly, you forget about the work it took to reach that point. However, you're simply not going to put the necessary time and effort into finding the good stuff in the type of fic that doesn't interest you, so you're never going to get past that initial awareness of the high percentage of bad to good fic.

And as a gen-writer who has been a professional writer/editor for over 15 years and who skews much higher on the age-range than the average fanficcer, um... yeah. What you said.

[rachelmap.livejournal.com]

There's good slash, but Sturgeon's Law doesn't get suspended just because the main characters are teh ghey.

[fluffybkitty.livejournal.com]

I'll never be a real girl until I start typing with one hand. - dies laughing!!!

[szandara.livejournal.com]

Not to mention the inherent contempt for those of us who actually do things like have heterosexual, monogamous, married-with-kids relationships and have the nerve to actually enjoy this kind of relatioship and maybe even want to read about similar relationships.

We're pathetic, boring, stuck-in-the-box, unimaginative suburban dullards, mental prisoners of the patriarchy. We couldn't possibly have chosen a kind of relationship and life that we find satisfying. We simply don't have the courage to be queer and adventurous and free like all those fascinating gay people--we've defaulted to boring heteronormativity, because we don't have what it takes to be quirky and creative like slashers.

Fuck that noise. That is every bit as disrespectful and hypocritical as anything I've heard from the Nutjob Rightwing Christjacker faction.

And personally, I find slash squicky, and I find detailed descriptions of m/m gay sex squicky, but that doesn't mean I don't think there are good writers or good stories in that genre. It's just not my preference.

I think I had better not jump into that thread. Because the stupid, it burns.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

*Cries*

There are plenty of het, monogamous, married-with-kids women writing slash.

And personally, I find slash squicky, and I find detailed descriptions of m/m gay sex squicky, but that doesn't mean I don't think there are good writers or good stories in that genre. It's just not my preference.

You're certainly entitled to feel this way, but I wish I didn't have to know about it. It makes me feel bad, like if slash is squicky then the people who write it and like it are somehow squicky and unsavory and yucky.

[djinanna.livejournal.com]

::resists going to referenced post to make comment of "stop being on my side, you're making my side look REALLY BAD!!!!!!!"::

So I read the post, what there was of it. I skimmed the comments. I checked the membership list of the comm. After almost 3 years of Harry Potter fandom, over 4 years on LJ, and six-plus years (reading) in online fandom, I only recognized 2 names on the membership list. That ... tells me something about the general tone and composition of the comm. Center of the fannish meta'verse it is not.

Um, what I'm trying to say is, with opinions like this, it's good to consider the source. And this source seems insular and fannishly incestuous. Or do I mean fannishly cannibalistic? I blame that weird X-Files episode about the creepy farm family (and also Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the obvious inspiration for that XF ep; though I've seen that XF ep - once and once ONLY - I have luckily avoided all TCM-type versions *ick*) for how I get those two mixed up.

Though I will certainly agree that I've seen similar opinions (with rotating "het", "gen", "slash", "femslash", etc) posted far too many times over the years. Not to mention a plethora of other perennial Topics of Vast Irritation. There's a certain fannish ... immaturity? naivete? ignorance? something! ... about them. And they always come back around.

Of course, as for me, I'm vaguely infuriated about the cheap negative MPREG crack from someone in comments. ::fluffy sniff of outrage:: MPREG, like everything else, operates under Sturgeon's Law (though I do think that in most instances, Sturgeon was a pessimist), which means that if 90% is crap, then 10% is gold.

And ladysorka is also challenging the OP opinion nicely. *She* is on my side and making it look brilliant.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

The whole discussion really just makes my stomach hurt, to the point where I've admittedly only skimmed your post here. It seems like such a waste of time and energy on everyone's part to be fighting within fandom, you know? (Granted, this isn't really a fight, but it still hurts my stomach.)

Now, do I think there's a slight bias against gen and het writers?
Well, yeah. I think there is.

I think slash writers feel that there's a bias against slash writers. Maybe we in fandom are all just overly sensitive about being seen as the geeks in general, so we all have a tendency to feel like we're at the bottom of the barrel as far as social hierarchy goes?

I can tell you that the other night in IM I mentioned to a fellow slasher (and we both consider ourselves slashers despite the fact that we've both written het and gen and we both read het and gen) that I was a little nervous about WriterCon because I'm worried that het/gen writers (and I will clarify that I mean het/gen writers NOT on my flist - ie, generic het/gen writers that I don't know) might be overheard making nasty comments about slashers and spoil my good time.

[southernbangel.livejournal.com]

might be overheard making nasty comments about slashers and spoil my good time.

Last time I checked the attendees list for Writercon, it appeared to me that the majority were people who would tend to identify themselves as slash writers, or at least fans of slash pairings so one would think that het/gen fans may have cause to be nervous, rather than slash writers. Not that I think anyone at Writercon is going to denigrate anyone else. I think everyone will be too busy getting drunk! :)

[othercat.livejournal.com]

*sweatdrop*

That's just...a really stupid list of generalizations. (Though, a big reason I avoid most het and femslash is because of the overuse phrases like "molten core" "core" "twat" and "pussy"...word/phrases I find terminally unsexy.)

[marenfic.livejournal.com]

My honeyed core feels judged.

I should probably add a wink as you don't know me

[bellatemple]

Huh. It's good to know that I, as an almost purely Gen writer, am uncreative and not quirky. Also that the fics I write are boring and cliche, apparently.

Guess I better get my young, writer-newb ass into writing me some slash!

Ye gods. I keep running into more and more gross generalizers who haven't really looked into what they're talking about these days. *flees into her corner of just reading her flist and does not venture out for awhile*

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

I blame teh internets.

I think this is a case of someone who's so entrenched in their little corner of fandom that they don't think to stick their nose beyond their comfort zone to find out *gasp* that there are people just as narrow-minded as they are out there!

Okay, that was a bitchy statement, but gross generalizations make me bitchy as all hell. You don't know the person behind the story. You can't know. So making assumptions based on the fact that they write genres that you don't like strikes me as rather stupid. It makes for a miserable life in general if you extend that to real life.

[honorh.livejournal.com]

Someone has to say it:

Won't someone think of the gen writers? We think of you . . . fully clothed!

Seriously, the whole set of "more creative than thou" writers ought to be thoroughly thumped and then set down in front of computers fixed to filter out their favorite genre until they admit they're wrong.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

*sob*

Us gen writers are the true persecuted minority, I tells ya. Instead of undressing all those people with our eyes, we're dressing them. Or, since we're talking Buffy fandom here, we're dressing them better.

True, a naked ankle does so make me weak in the knees, but I blame the burka I wear 27/7 for that.

I'm just mystified how anyone can get so wrapped up in one genre that they've decided that all other genres suck. Seriously. I mean the hell? Can't you just say that you prefer X and leave it at that? Why get defensive about it to the point of putting down everything you don't like?

The human mind is a very strange thing.

[terioncalling.livejournal.com]

Must resist urge to comment on original post, must resist urge to comment on original post...would be bad to comment on original post with thoughts...

*glares at where it is still loaded in a tab instead*

'Cause girls are squicky
*sneer* As a girl, I find offense with that statement. Let's see how far the human race goes when everyone thinks girls are squicky.

*breathe*

Now for thoughts...numero uno, this person (and personage's that commented for the most part) are silly. Everything written (fan and published) has good and bad writer's. Fact of life. Numero dos, slash is not the best. Nothing (underline, italicize, bold, and slap that one up in neon lights) is the best. Every brand/type/whatever you wanna call it of writing has it's best and it's worst. I've read (and I'm sure everyone else has too) good fic and bad fic in every type of fic I've ever read. Even ventured into slash a few times, scrabbling through my small pile to find the good. Just like I do when reading het. There's good, there's bad, and nothing - NOTHING - makes any type of writing better than another. Not even your own personal opinions.

*tapes rant mouth shut*

Okay, I'm done. And I can tell from the previous comments here that we all pretty much agree with what I said: there's good and bad in any kind of fic genre you look at. Excuse the mild rant.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Rant away. I can think of a lot of criteria on which to judge something as "good" or "bad." Grammar. Spelling. You know, things like that.

Labels, by and large, isn't really part of the criteria. Labels only tell you whether you might want to read the story or not. It's not material to the story's quality at all. Saying that slash is the best or het is the best or gen is the best is really a stupid thing to say because they're nothing more than "labels" and that's it. It's hardly a guidepost to quality.

Every genre, and I mean every genre has its own pile of shit, the shit crosses the lines with breath-taking ease without regards to the genitalia involved. For every piece of OOC schmoop there exists between Xander/Spike, I guarantee there's a maching piece of OOC schmoop between Xander/Faith. For every slash Xander-stripping-in-Oxnard story that suddenly makes Giles fall in mad luv with the Zeppo after sekritly watching him from the back of the club that exists, I guarentee you there's a matching het Xander-stripping-in-Oxnard story that suddenly makes Buffy fall in mad luv with the Zeppo after sekritly watching him from the back of the club.

Personal opinions/tastes =/= fact. It never does. It drives me up a wall when people think it does.

[nocturnalista.livejournal.com]

Slash writers don't write romance novels? Slash has fewer Marty Stus? Slash writers are older? Huh????

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that gave me a wtf moment myself.

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

As a rule I stay completely out of the fandom wars but I've always been a little befuddled by this attitude. It popped up a lot on a list I used to frequent but haven't in a long time. I'll admit I tend to read more slash than I read het. My reasons are rather bizarre. Bad het or gen merely makes me laugh or roll my eyes, while even bad slash can sometimes yield something useful (in the most embarrassing sense of the word), at least often enough I still read the silly things.

For strictly reading pleasure however, all three are equally delicious when done well. Then you have to get into an individual's reading experiences. Perhaps this individual never had the chance to read yourself, nwhepcat, nandibble, Barb C, aadler, or the many other wonderful het and gen writers out there whose names I am shamefully not recalling this moment. My memory needs a reboot. Hey, I'm trying to be fair here. Sadly, I doubt a reading list of the year's best het and gen would yield the hoped for results.

BTW, something that's always bugged me. I completely agree with you about justifying a gender preference change. The show bugged me in this regard with Willow shouting "Gay now!" at every opportunity are we to assume her relationship with Oz meant nothing? When I suggested to a fellow Buffy watcher between s6 and s7 that Willow's next love interest might be either female or male I got my head bitten off. Geez.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Truthfully, I'm mystified what genitalia has anything to do with anything. If you don't think it makes a bit of difference in RL, I'm mystified why it should matter shit-all in fiction of any stripe. People are people and characters are characters. Who they're having sex with, if they're having sex at all, is really beside the point if the story is good enough.

Then again, I'm a slut when it comes to good stories. I can be won over if it's well-written enough, regardless of ship content or anything.

As with Willow...*shrug* I always thought part of the problem was AH herself. She didn't convince me at all that she actually enjoyed macking on a woman. Ever. In the run of the entire show. She was better as the "in-theory" lesbian, i.e., self-identified lesbian who doesn't actually have to play off of an actual female-shaped character. I wonder how much of the "gay now" crap was because very few people actually bought her "gender switch." And would it have killed them to make her "bi?"

In a lot of ways, ME totally wrote themselves into a corner by killing off Tara. The batshit Kitten brigade went on the public warpath, effectively torpedoing Willow and Xander hooking up (which was one of the options Joss has admitted to exploring) and effecitvely torpedoing AH's wishes that Willow wouldn't hook up with anyone in S7. But, yeah, it drove me bananas that the writers kept downplaying the importance of Oz and Xander in Willow's life...hell, they did it with Xander when not even a few months before he stopped her from destroying the world.

So, yeah, I never got the whole "Willow is an experimental lesbian or hardcore lesbian" because god knows bi people are the ultimate invisible sexual preference. Ummm, isn't it perfectly okay for Willow to experiment with being a lesbian? Lots of women do in college. It doesn't make her relationship with Tara any less than it was. Can she be bi? Still doesn't denigrate Tara is she is.

Sorry. You stepped on a peeve. It's just the way that ME hammered the whole "Willow gay now!" thing, I'd like at least some acknowlegement in fanfic that Willow's female lovers meant just as much to her as her male ones. That's all. Can we just not denigrate the past relationships? Is that so much to ask?

I'll wipe up the splooge now.

[lisaroquin.livejournal.com]

*rolls eyes*

The "Het writers are: younger/less experienced/higher rate of Mary Sue" *snort* No, dear twit who said that, you were younger and worse when you wrote het and you may or may not have improved since.

As for the het writers are writing romance? Oh God, then please explain some of the Jack/Daniel or Spike/Xander epics I've waded through that are...yeah. (And dear god the number of PMSing teenaged girls in fic I've read that are trapped in male bodies and named Daniel Jackson or Xander Harris--*cackles* sure there are not bad characterizations, just like there isn't in het that had Hermione Granger seemingly possessed by Maria DeLuca of Roswell and saying 'dang, chica'" The Sue/Stu/Characterization arguement holds no water whatsoever. Every genre has their nightmares)

More creativity? Uhm Angel/Spike is an easy pairing compared to Xander/Faith to make *work*

Ah, what do I know, I'll wander back off into my corner and write my cracktastic crossovers and other insane bits and pieces.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Cracktastic crossovers is of the good. Everyone has fun that way.

Besides, I think you can argue that Angel/Spike is canon, really.

I'm with you on slash that turns the guys into girls with dicks. I mean, c'mon, what's the point? Sure, (for example) Xander can be mushy. Spike can be mushy. But with each other? Snark and mutual pointed comments are how they frickin' communicate, and that's even in those rare instance when they're getting along. Somehow I don't see these guys falling into each others arms and weeping over the beauty of their love. Snarking on each other to show the beauty of their love, yes. Puppy dogs, sunsets, and picket fences, not so much.

Let's not even get into what happens with Daniel and Jack in more than one epic masterpiece. I'll start weeping uncontrollably if that happens.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

My entry point to fanfic was writing Blakes 7, because before that I'd been writing (not particularly good) gay and bi-themed action-adventure fics for a couple of bisexual publications.

My first het-fic was in response to a challenge on a B7 board, and people either loved it or hated it (straight women seemed to hate it) and it was verging on Marty-Stu Avon in my opinion if not in anyone else's.

I've slowly come to the opinion that if I like the idea then I'm going to write it no matter what pairing (or not) is involved. This may explain why Lorne/Ethan is the nearest thing I have to an OTP.

I'm a plotter not a shipper -- I pick pairings based on what characters will work in the context of the story, and which of those fit together neatly in my head. Laid back fic with music and hash -- Giles/Oz; investigation into occult mysteries -- Giles/Anya; anything seventies -- Giles/Ethan or possibly Ethan/Deidre (although that's more an early 80's pairing). If there's shops/shopping and music involved it's Lorne/Ethan all the way, natch.

You probably missed it, but I did spend a lot of time angsting over who Richard would end up with in the novel. In the end I went with the relationship that was least unhealthy for all concerned, regardless of whether or not I was making a political statement. Though I'm not backing down on making some kind of reference (no matter how coded) to his sexuality in all novel-associated blurb.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Yike. I think I owe you a B7 email. Or maybe it's a nother B7 fan on my FList. It's been PowerPoint hell this week and my mind is not on writterly things.

*nod with you*

Character-driven relationships really are the stuff. Depending on the plot/situation/time period/whatever, it's honestly not hard to justify a ship, provided the writer puts a little work into it. Now, there are some characters I don't think are terribly slashable (Capt. Sisko from DS9 codes to me as pretty striaght-up het, for example, so a slash pairing with him makes me go WtF), but it's based on the character itself and very little on his actual genitalia. By the same token, other characters are more mutable in that regard (certainly Xander and Giles falls into this category), given the right circumstances and/or person.

This "Slot A" fits into "Slot B" business strikes me as just a slight over simplification. Or maybe it's a justification. "I like X, so there for X is best" which does not track because you =/= everyone else on the planet.

[set-aka-ian.livejournal.com]

[quote] next thing you know someone is tossing around the "homophobe" and "hive vagina" labels. [/quote]

'Kay, I don't hang with the right crowd. I know what a homophobe is, but have no clue what the term 'hive vagina' means...

I await enlightenment with an even mix of anticipation and dread.

[set-aka-ian.livejournal.com]

As for the actual topic? Whatever. I'm not afraid of sex in fic, but the stuff that *I* like is more Gen and less Ship. Explicit stuff in particular I tend to gloss over, and if it gets to the point where there is too much explicit and not enough plot or characterization, I lose interest.

I'm a guy, I don't go for porn that doesn't have pictures. Can't read when the eyes are crossing.

[jpublic.livejournal.com]

Words fail me.

Wait....maybe they don't.

I've been involved in the fanfiction circles for almost 10 years. TEN YEARS. Anime, fantasy, sci-fi, you name it.

Through my long and varied experience, I can conclusively say that the specific relationshipping the author prefers and/or writes has SWEET FNORD ALL to do with the quality of writing.

So, since they can do it, let me make some sweeping inaccurate generalization of my own as an example: "Why is it that all slash writers seem to completely forget anything about the characters, anything involving trueness to the source, or the basic rules of writing in their efforts to show hot man loving?"

(For those of you skimming and looking for something to get agitated over, that was an example, not an actual statement/claim/whatever. Chill people.)

Hmm. Don't know if I reached the same offensiveness. I don't have the whole self-righteousness to carry it.

But still, want to bet the triggering poster would find that comment offensive whilst he/she sits there and wonders why you and I are upset?

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Not even a bet there.

I find the generalizations on both sides of the het/slash divide to be equally insulting. This one just happened to hit my buttons in a bad way.

[semirose.livejournal.com]

Didn't actually read the original post, but I just bet most of these people don't actually read het, so of course their not going to have a good opinion of it. I spent years reading only slash/gen (mainly cause I wasn't all the interested in the females in the fandoms I was in, only when I started in on fandoms where I liked the female characters did I start reading het), and it's easy to overlook the fact that there is good interesting het out there when you're not interested in finding it.

And older? Bah, the first thing I wrote was slash, I was 13 and it was awful, every genre has good and bad writers, just because you haven't read it and aren't interested in reading it doesn't mean it's not there.

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

Whoah, I go away for a week, and the world goes insane.
I haven't had the time or inclination to go read that link, but as someone who reads, and prefers, good solid writing with things like plot, and interesting characters, I just want to say Bwhuh???
Good writing is hard, whatever the genre, or the ship. I don't read slash, because that just isn't my thing; I don't say I wouldn't read a well written piece that was slash. However most of what I have seen just doesn't have any appeal to me.
I read your fic, and that of writers like a2zmom because you write well, and create stories I enjoy. That would be your aim in writing, I would assume...so keep on doing what you are doing, and I'll keep reading.

Scholarly gibberish response.

[aceliwen.livejournal.com]

I have... a hypothesis. (I love hypothesizing.)

It is possible that slash fiction was once the province of writers who were willing to explore and upset the strictures of heteronormativity as posited by Kustritz[1]; but in the postmodern era of the internet, where choice is more or less accepted as the norm ("if you don't like it, don't read it"), there is no longer any need to use slash fiction to subvert a heterosexual-dominated narrative. In fact, one could argue that there are many divergent narratives emerging which means no one narrative is truly dominant anymore.

All these accepted narratives mean that there are no boundaries preventing poor or inexperienced writers from writing in any genre of fan fiction they please. If anyone can write and publish anything at any given time, the writing quality among genres of fan fiction must be more or less equal when taken as a whole[2].

However, if Kustritz is right, then there may have been a reputation of quality originally associated with slash fiction--you can't explore narratives without, well, a narrative[3]--which continues to be propagated. Why? I couldn't say without starting to talk completely out my ass.

The end!

PS: If I have been talking completely out my ass during this entire thing anyway, I'm sure someone will let me know.

---
[1] Kustritz, A. Slashing the Romance Narrative. The Journal of American Culture. September 2003. Vol. 26, Issue 3, p. 371. PDF downloaded when I was attempting to write a paper last semester on how The Female Quixote was an excellent example of Mary Sue literature.

[2] One could argue this is all crap since there is no generally accepted standard of "quality" with which to compare various pieces of fanfic. I know. Also, I use "as a whole" to mean if one were to survey all the published literature, from the pit of voles to insular groups, group it into genres, and make a study of it.



[3] As an example, I point to the "plot? what plot?" tag. If there was no expectation of plot, there would be no need for a tag.