Maybe it IS the new slash. Or maybe it's a one-armed bandit.
Along with the Reading Fic that I do, I also do a lot of Intending to Read Fic. So I have these big honkin' folders full of links, right? I know of garbage hoarding and animal hoarding... It could be that I'm a link hoarder.
My HP to-read folder has 1229 links, which is just very sad, especially seeing as I'm rarely reading HP at the moment. My SPN to-read folder is slightly less overwhelming, with 593 links divided into folders: gen, het, Sam/Dean, other slash, and genderfuck. Truly, those are not the best categories, because there are so many aspects of a story which are more meaningful than who's boinking who. But hey. That's the convention we use, and that's the information that's often included in the post's title and therefore in the internet shortcut.
A tangent: The way I save links is by clicking on the tab, or else on the urlbar favicon, and dragging it over into a folder. And this doesn't work for Insanejournal; the shortcut is just named "Untitled" and I have to go back and change it manually. It's another way Insanejournal fails to endear itself to me. Which is kinda funny, because Journalfen does the same thing, only my reactions are the opposite. The more time I spend at Journalfen, the more I like it.
Anyway, in reading my flist this morning I found a story I wanted to check out later, a fucked up and hurty one. But it wasn't immediately apparent if it was Sam/Dean, or OCs, or if there was a pairing at all. And because I don't have a folder labeled "fucked up and hurty," I had to choose one of the existing ones. (And I mean really. For me? That would soon cease to be a useful designation, because pretty much every story I'd want to read EVER would end up there. Oh ho ho.)
So I put it in the Sam/Dean folder because that way I'd be sure to read it sooner.
And I realized that this isn't the first time I've made that decision; it's just the first time I've consciously considered it. And wait, what? I love gen. Most of my favorite fics in that fandom are creepy gen casefiles, done in a tone similar to canon. I LOVE gen. But. I know that links run the risk of getting buried unless I put them where there's lots of turnover. And the fact is, the Sam/Dean folder gets a lot more turnover than the others. And what is THAT about?
I don't generally enjoy stories where the brothers are in love and happy and sparkly; those themes usually squick me. But stories where there's desperation and guilt and loathing and need? Where incest arises as a result of the wreckage of their lives and, rather than easing pain, it only sinks them deeper... Where sex is used as a means of destruction? That is BULLETPROOF. I love mindfucks. I love it when characters get their hurt and their comfort from the same place. And incest is a really, really excellent vehicle for that.
So excellent in fact that now I'm hooked, searching for that perfect story, that story that's going to hit all of my buttons and none of my squicks. It's like a jones, seriously. And I wind up compromising my squick threshold by reading lots of happy sparkly incest, all in pursuit of that next hit. Dude, it's... "I don't want it, I just need it."
Peck that button, pigeon!
My HP to-read folder has 1229 links, which is just very sad, especially seeing as I'm rarely reading HP at the moment. My SPN to-read folder is slightly less overwhelming, with 593 links divided into folders: gen, het, Sam/Dean, other slash, and genderfuck. Truly, those are not the best categories, because there are so many aspects of a story which are more meaningful than who's boinking who. But hey. That's the convention we use, and that's the information that's often included in the post's title and therefore in the internet shortcut.
A tangent: The way I save links is by clicking on the tab, or else on the urlbar favicon, and dragging it over into a folder. And this doesn't work for Insanejournal; the shortcut is just named "Untitled" and I have to go back and change it manually. It's another way Insanejournal fails to endear itself to me. Which is kinda funny, because Journalfen does the same thing, only my reactions are the opposite. The more time I spend at Journalfen, the more I like it.
Anyway, in reading my flist this morning I found a story I wanted to check out later, a fucked up and hurty one. But it wasn't immediately apparent if it was Sam/Dean, or OCs, or if there was a pairing at all. And because I don't have a folder labeled "fucked up and hurty," I had to choose one of the existing ones. (And I mean really. For me? That would soon cease to be a useful designation, because pretty much every story I'd want to read EVER would end up there. Oh ho ho.)
So I put it in the Sam/Dean folder because that way I'd be sure to read it sooner.
And I realized that this isn't the first time I've made that decision; it's just the first time I've consciously considered it. And wait, what? I love gen. Most of my favorite fics in that fandom are creepy gen casefiles, done in a tone similar to canon. I LOVE gen. But. I know that links run the risk of getting buried unless I put them where there's lots of turnover. And the fact is, the Sam/Dean folder gets a lot more turnover than the others. And what is THAT about?
I don't generally enjoy stories where the brothers are in love and happy and sparkly; those themes usually squick me. But stories where there's desperation and guilt and loathing and need? Where incest arises as a result of the wreckage of their lives and, rather than easing pain, it only sinks them deeper... Where sex is used as a means of destruction? That is BULLETPROOF. I love mindfucks. I love it when characters get their hurt and their comfort from the same place. And incest is a really, really excellent vehicle for that.
So excellent in fact that now I'm hooked, searching for that perfect story, that story that's going to hit all of my buttons and none of my squicks. It's like a jones, seriously. And I wind up compromising my squick threshold by reading lots of happy sparkly incest, all in pursuit of that next hit. Dude, it's... "I don't want it, I just need it."
Peck that button, pigeon!