It's been a while since I wrote some tl;dr fandom meta...

[iamtheliquorr]

OK, I'm bored out of my brains AGAIN so I'm going to spam with a little fandom-based essay (not really a rant, since it's not angry enough IMO) that's been knocking around my head for a while.  I'm posting it here and not at fandom_discuss or fandom_rant because this subject tends to generate more wank than AlMiles during Jensen Ackles' Smallville audition.  I'm trusting

Comments

[few]

Also here from metafandom.

What I more feel is that het is not what I'm interested in so I, personally, get bored.

Which is perfectly understandable to me, since that's how I tend to feel about slash.

I've read some, and I've even written a couple of fics that could be defined that way, but the pairings I'm interested in are almost all het*--and since I'm something of an OTP kind of person, I tend not to read pairings that don't interest me.

Since I nearly always skip over sex scenes in fic (so few of them, IME, are necessary to the story and/or characterisation, and smut itself frankly bores me--yes, I know I'm a freak), whether the people involved have similar or different physical characteristics really doesn't come into it. I'm perfectly fine for slash to be out there, and for it to be popular; no one's making me read it when I don't want to.

In fact, the only problem I have with slash is actually with that subset of slashers who imply I'm repressed or homophobic or just plain boring simply because my reading tastes differ from theirs. Which means I co-exist just fine with the majority of slashers. :)

* I'm currently trying to decide whether my interest in a particular pair of characters is in a slashy sense, or if I find non-romantic aspects of their relationship more interesting. But I'm open to the possibility that it's the former.

[airinshaw]

You know? Pretty much everything you just wrote? I could have written, but from the slash side. I can and will read PWPs - but I love the more emotional, characterisation fics. I'm also a very OTP person (I'm a John/Rodney shipper and so no way do I want to read things where someone breaks up their happy home! ;) ) and that colours what I read.

Part of the reason why I love slash is that there always seems to be this idea that the perfect, pretty boy gets the perfect, pretty girl. I live in a world where the perfect, pretty boy is often arrogant and big-headed and where the perfect, pretty girl is a bitch. Or where the perfect, pretty girl is dating the other perfect, pretty girl. Life is so diverse that I want my fic to be too. I think that some slashers tend to mistake all het as non-diverse which is where some trouble comes from. I notice that any pairings I love would not fall into that "perfect" catagory. In HP I love Ron/Hermione because Ron isn't the "hero". I love Elizabeth/Ronon in SGA as they have such differences and so would make a more interesting story.

I think mainly it comes down to individual preference. I don't understand why everyone doesn't ship John/Rodney above all other, slash or het, the same way I don't understand why some people like mushrooms when I don't. Does that mean I don't accept that they don't? Nope. Does that mean that I judge them? Well - maybe for the mushrooms thing...;) But no. I think the main problem is that, het or slash, some people do.

[few]

Oh, but everyone knows those evil mushroom lovers must be stopped! Preferably before they ruin all my food with their slimy, yicky fungus....*shudder*

I think non-perfect characters are always more interesting. Since I'm not a visual reader, even for media fandoms, I never have a picture in my head of the characters I'm reading about; so even if the actors are pretty, that doesn't really enter into fic for me. OTOH, pairings where the characters are different enough from each other to both cause conflict and complement each other? Love it.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention about not reading slash is that even where I like the characters in canon and can easily see what makes people slash them (canonical subtext, etc), I often prefer the platonic interpretation. It's basically a personal kink, almost--I really like the idea of very close, emotionally intimate friendship (in any gender combination; I've been known to happily read friendship-only fics for my het OTPs). The kind of friendship that from the outside may seem more like a romantic relationship, only without the sex, simply because our society doesn't really think in those terms for men, either in male/male friendships or, often, male/female ones.

Particularly friendships where the people are both a) close enough and b) confident enough for it to occasionally manifest as lighthearted, understood-to-be-joking flirting. I haven't the slightest clue why I like that so much, but that's what makes it a kink, right?

So I can both see the slash in a pairing and simultaneously deny its existence. :)

And, yeah, the problem is definitely the people who judge those whose preferences aren't the same as theirs. Which pretty much sums up a whole lot of what's wrong with the real world, too, doesn' t it?

[elasg]

In fact, the only problem I have with slash is actually with that subset of slashers who imply I'm repressed or homophobic or just plain boring simply because my reading tastes differ from theirs.

Agreed. I have no problem with slash as a genre, but the attitudes of some of its more vocal proponents turned me off to it quite early on.