Classifying

[mizubyte]

So I was taking a poll on a flister's LJ, and they were asking about how you classify your stories.  By pairings I mean, not by genre.   And I got very curious, because I'm not sure there's actually a standard for this.

So my basic understanding is that there's Gen, Het and Slash (w/ sometimes femslash as its own category, but i tend to stick it

Comments

[psuedo_catalyst]

I actually was thinking about this recently, because in the last few days I was reading through someone's lj, can't remember whose but this happens on fairly regular basis, anyway--someone was justifying the fundemantal right of fans to write bandom because we've been (kind of) sanctioned by Cobra Starship

[mizubyte]

Well Suarez has said Cobra sits around reading fics together over their coffee, so really, Cobra seems to have no issue with it.

My Chem on the other hand, hates it immensely. So. IDK. (or care honestly, sorry guys!)

I usually only see slash or het tags on large communities with strict tagging guidelines, or on delicious where people are saving their fic.

So if a gen fic has no pairings at all, does that count canon pairings? Would a tour fic about MCR that features the wives (as characters, but not as a focus) be considered het or gen? or both?

[michelel72]

I actually avoid that system as much as possible, just because it's so confusing.

I tend to assume that a het story is about a male+female relationship, a slash one is about a same-sex one, and a gen story might have pairings but isn't about the relationships. The more foregrounded the primary relationship, the more I push it away from gen.

Which is not remotely sufficient. My fandom tends towards short stories that are about one specific relationship, but that is not, by far, everything. Hell, what label should apply to an M/M/M/F OT3 OT4 (I can count, honest) PWP? What about the same grouping in a long plotty fic

[mizubyte]

I do agree LJ/DW is an awesome space, because yeah, you can just tack on all the labels/information you want. I love when authors tag stories lots of different ways (and I appreciate the effort, i know how tedious tagging fics can be)

I'm not a fan of the AO3 system (I'm in the process of moving my fics over, but its cumbersome), but i do love the delicious tagging system where you can add as many tags as you want to a story.

My fandom tends towards long, ridiculously thought out AUs with multiple pairings, which is why I'm always curious. For example, one fic pretty much falls under all three. It's got slash and het pairings, but those are all secondary to the main plot of a year in art school. So it can get very confusing, especially for people, i think, who claim not to like to read "gen" stories

[mizubyte]

since the term "slash" originated in trek in the first place to differentiate between Kirk/Spock in a romantic relationship vs. Kirk & Spock are awesome BFFs who are going to save the universe.... yeah it was probably to warn people and keep some away.

I was probably the worst person to ask this, since I dont actually tag ANY of my fics (mine, or the ones i save) as het or slash. i tag by pairing, and gen is a "genre" tag, when the story isn't romance or shippy or whatever. :-)

[flo_nelja]

First, thing, I don't use this classification on my fic headers, because the pairings are clearly mentioned. Still, it is in tags, and in my personal stats.
I usually use :

Gen : The only pairings are secondary to the plot and canon. Slash or het doesn't matter (except than, well, there are a lot more het pairings that slash pairings in my fandoms

[igbc]

In my fandom, the canon is so close to being slash that I just automatically think of the main pairing as a slash pairing. I can't help it, I just can't see them any other way. Recently I wrote and posted a fic I labelled slash. Then later I realized the fic had absolutely no slash in it, and was actually gen. So I accidentally wrote a gen fic and tagged it slash because I think of the guys as being in a slash relationship even when there's no sex, no kissing, no shippy stuff at all going on.

I recently read a fic in another fandom that was labelled gen, but there was a surprise! slash scene (fade to black, nothing explicit) in the middle of it. I didn't mind, because I love slash, but the author got some hate for it from other readers. She responded that she tagged the story gen because it wasn't about the same-sex encounter (which it wasn't).

So I don't know. If a couple are clearly in a relationship, even if nothing shippy happens in the fic, is that enough to make it slash or het?

[mizubyte]

IDK. I label fics (that I write and that I read) by pairing, but never "slash" or "het" because... well I tend to figure people can figure it out by the pairing. and if there is no pairing i'll label it genre:gen, or genre:friendship ... but fics that mention sidepairings (that arent the focus but are still in the story) might get those tags too.