What kind of slash do you like?

[emmagrant01]

I've been reading a lot of fan fic lately, and I've spent a lot of time thinking about what it is I really like in a good slash fic. After a few conversations with other slashers, I'm curious to know what other people think. Below I describe what I like and don't like in a fic, and I'm hoping this starts a conversation about what people generally like to see and why.

[Disclaimer: These are my opinions, and none of these comments are directed at any particular author or fic. If you disagree with me, great! But don't take anything here personally!]



So first of all, I'm not an OTPer. In fact, I'm the opposite -- I like pretty much Any Possible Pairing. (Probably not a surprise, coming from me!) I appreciate a good Qui/Obi story, no doubt about it, but what I *don't* like are mushy, fluffy, overly romantic fics in which the boys are destined for each other and declare their undying love before having glorious sex for the first time. I'm even more likely to hit the delete key if Obi has been "saving himself" for Qui, or if there's any whiff of a soul bond in the air. Or if Obi decides at the age of 17 that he is ready for a long-term commitment with his master, and Qui accepts this without question. Or if either of them says "I love you" only moments after they've recognized their mutual attraction. Unrequited love for a period of years is another turn-off, especially the old "Obi has never gotten over his padawan crush and is in love with Qui despite never having his feelings returned and is perfectly content to be lonely and celibate if he can't have his master" fic. Just doesn't do anything for me.

Why do I feel this way? Well, I've never liked "chick flicks" or romance novels. I much prefer conflict, characters dealing with inappropriate attraction for each other, and characters giving in to lust (because of stress, mistaken identity, or under the influence of chemicals) and then dealing with the consequences afterwards. I like angst. I like characters misunderstanding each other and hurting each other, and then working through their problems. I like insecurity, and people being forced to deal with their fears. I like people discovering their attraction for each other as a surprise, and resisting a relationship at first. I like stories that deal with the consequences of sex. Hot sex scenes are great, of course, but what does it mean for the characters? How does it affect them, positively and negatively? I like to see mediocre, merely comfortable sex occasionally, because that's realistic in a relationship. I like awkward sex, especially the first time.

I like Qui/Obi fics that deal realistically with the power differential between the characters, not to mention the age difference. I admire authors who either deal with it, or set the fic in a universe in which master-padawan sexual relationships are socially acceptable, and make me believe that universe makes sense.

I admire authors whose stories seem perfectly aligned with canon, but I love alternate universes as well. I love happy endings after a really angsty fic, but admire an author who has the balls not to give me a happy ending when it makes the story work. I like genuinely original plots and scenarios to get two characters together, or in which to explore an established relationship. I like to see new interpretations of characters that I thought I knew well. I like darkness and strife.

I suppose that fan fic is not an means of escape for me, so perhaps that explains my preference for realism and my rejection of what I see as pure romantic fluff. I like reading stories that make me think, that affect me physically, and that draw me in and make me care about the characters.

So, what about you?

Comments

[lauramcewan.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm still relatively new to this whole fandom, so I'm still in Q/O love. However, I will read other pairings, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the QAJ series (looking forward to the new season!)

I think it depends on my mood for what I want to read. Sometimes I do want to read romantic fluff and sometimes I want more angsty, or action, or AU. I think the only thing I'll truly shy away from are really hard-core BDSM or bestiality stuff, but some pain is not a problem, particularly if it's written well.

I do like stories that make me believe that the characters are real. Make Obi too whiny and I'll likely stop reading, make Qui really obtuse and I'll probably stop again. I like Q/O for their intelligence and hearts. I am thoroughly in love with them.

Sometimes I just need a good PWP!

I have barely looked at other fandoms, TPM is pretty much it (save Alex's Sublevels and some Pirates) but I'm sure eventually I'll branch out and read other slash types, which may end up seeming so different from TPM that I'll be surprised.

Right now, Q/O is a cocoon for me. A safe place for me to work out some personal angst within the confines of the Jedi Order. And it works for me.

Now I'm not sure if I answered your question very well.

O_o

[sileas.livejournal.com]

I've only had two big fandoms : TPM and Harry Potter. I read TPM for over three years until I read the Harry Potter books and started on the fan fiction. Now I barely read TPM and I hope I never get tired of HP.

In my experience, I'm much more lenient of 'bad' fic in TPM than I am in HP. I don't mind bad characterisation in TPM all that much, but it's a definite turn-off for me in HP (except when it involves bondage or spankings or truly remarkable sex). I'll most likely read on in TPM even when the characters are behaving weirdly, while in HP, I'd just delete the story.

[helens78]

Part of what I like about fanfic is the ability to explore a universe more fully than I did just with movies or profic. So for TPM, part of what gets me interested is that I get to see small details about the universe I might never have otherwise come across. I'm a fan of AUs, obviously, and I like seeing the different variations of the universe from one author's mind to the next. (Incidentally, this is actually something I've been doing for years, I just never realized it. All my attempts at Mary-Sue-izing universes I really liked were half a desire to be in that world myself and half a desire to see that world more clearly. I have Three Musketeers fic, Robin Hood fic, and three and a half metric tons of Old West fic in file cabinets...)

As for the slashy bit of the universe... well, that's a fairly prurient interest. It's there because I Like Smut, and I don't mind the shallowness of that. ;) I also like to think that porn can, in fact, lead to character development and interesting situations. I think we've done nicely with this in QAJ.

Now, as for my other new fandom, LotRPS -- specifically, slashing Sean Bean with Viggo Mortensen -- I've actually given that a bit of thought, too. What interests me about the two of them is their differences. Sean's the gruff, Northern-British, conservative-but-very-open-friendly guy; Viggo's this insane artist who goes to poetry readings in paint-stained overshirts and barefoot. It really calls to my own inner duality -- the half of me that's a technogeek and can talk economics all day long vs. the half of me that writes, sketches on rare occasion, and has a million other creative pursuits. Writing those two archetypes together -- which is very much what I'm doing when I'm writing them -- is getting to explore that duality by taking it out of one person and bouncing it off two highly attractive men.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

I wonder if in part it's because Harry Potter is novels and Star Wars is movies? A novel is a much more detailed, textured format than a movie can ever be. A movie is always more surface, leaving more room for interpretation. So it seems to me, anyway. And probably also explains why I have no interest in HP fanfic, though I adore the novels.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

I just hope Viggio washes his hair more often in your stories than he does in those hobbit movies....

*snicker*

[helens78]

"I shower every day (almost)"... says Kal's Viggo, with a grin the size of Montana. Hahaha. ;)

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

What kind of slash do I like?

I like it harder, longer, and deeper. And pain, baby! Love dat pain! But BDSM just makes me laugh.

(Okay, I guess I'm still a little worked up after that baby shower yesterday. Jeez..........)

[errantheart.livejournal.com]

Make Obi too whiny and I'll likely stop reading, make Qui really obtuse and I'll probably stop again. I like Q/O for their intelligence and hearts. I am thoroughly in love with them.

You said it, and better than I could ^_^

Before I went into the TPM fandom, I once read an online article about cliches in fanfic. One of them was "Whimpering soulbonded Obi-Wan". I didn't understand that then as well as I do now.

I am an OTP-er - but it takes time to get to that stage. Occasionally I may read a particular pairing, and then I read a fic with another pairing that converts me in that instant. And I stay with a conversion like that.

Other fandoms - I was in the LOTR and HP fandoms before I came into this one. Curiously enough, it was the HP fandom which brought me here, by virtue of Telanu's work. She writes both HP and TPM.

As for what I don't read - That's interesting. Because seven years earlier, I would have said I didn't read slash. ; )

Because (speaking for myself) good authors can (and have) made me change my mind. I used to avoid reading non-con like the plague, until I found writers who wrote it so well that they made me care even as I was thinking Please, don't do this to them. I tend not to like pain as a whole, but I'm not sure how much of this is due to my personal bias - I can't understand how pain could be enjoyed, but that's just me.

And my view on canon is - Whatever works. ^_^ I don't think canon should stand in the way of a good fic.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Q/O is definitely what drew me to the fandom in the first place, but after you've read most of what's on the archive, truly original stories about that pairing become harder and harder to find. I guess I have a short attention span. I dunno, but plain vanilla soul-bonded mushy Q/O is just damn boring to me these days. Not that there isn't still good stuff out there, or currently and yet to be written. It's just that so much of it is almost formulaic these days.

Maybe I'm just too picky! :^P

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I think it was jedirita who said that it's not hard to write good fanfic in TPM because the profic and the scripts of the films aren't exactly stellar examples of literary achievement. HP, on the other hand... I adore the HP fandom as well, but fics have to be really good for me to truly enjoy them. In fact, I'm starting to think that fandom is one of the most challenging, because the books are sooo good. There's a lot to try to live up to.

And AUs seem to be much more popular in TPM as well. Hmmm... after OotP, though, that might change.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Part of what I like about fanfic is the ability to explore a universe more fully than I did just with movies or profic.

I think it's also the case that profic -- especially in SF -- tends to be written by men for men. And so, they don't write about the things women are interested in, like the characters and their lives, their relationships, how events really affect them, how they deal with pain, and so forth. I mean, how many space battles can you read about before you nod off and start dreaming about the two guys who were shooting at each other fucking each other instead?

What interests me about the two of them is their differences.

I can totally understand that! It's what draws me to Harry/Draco, and to Obi/Bail too, for that matter. It can be done well with Qui/Obi, but that doesn't seem to be the typical route for a fan fic plot, unfortunately.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I think my current obsession attraction for HP fanfic has to do with the fact that I loved the books so much that I want to spend more time in that universe, thinking about possibilities and characters. As I said somewhere above, I think that it's a very difficult fandom to write in because the author's work is inevitably going to be compared to JKR's writing. When people pull that off well (like Nimori does, for example), the effect is breathtaking!

Of course, my feelings for the SW universe have always been like that. I started reading and writing fan fic after AotC because I couldn't get enough of the universe. I really needed to find an outlet for thinking about it so much. I knew the same would happen with HP, and it did. (Not going to do any writing in that one, since QAJ is about all I can handle...)

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Apparently! *wink*

This is, of course, coming from the same Rita who took home two gay porn mags...

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I am an OTP-er - but it takes time to get to that stage.

I guess it depends on the fandom. In TPM, Q/O was *the* pairing that got it all started, and then it branched out from there. I was attracted to the fandom at first because a) it was Star Wars, b) it was slash, and c) it involved a character who looks a lot like Ewan in my head. Now that I think about it, I basically only read Obi-centric pairings... Hmmm... And I'll read any pairing with Obi in it, to be honest. When I first started reading in TPM, it was almost all Q/O -- and I love Q/O, but that "whimpering soul-bonded Obi-Wan" thing is just hard to avoid sometimes. You don't get that in Obi/Bail, or even Obi/Anakin.

And as for what I won't read -- well, it's really hard to squick me these days! Thanks to Nimori, not even bestiality is an auto-"no" anymore. I've learned not to say "never" to most things, but bad or cliche-d writing is going to remain firmly on that list.

[helens78]

I think it's also the case that profic -- especially in SF -- tends to be written by men for men.

Hmm -- interesting concept! I have only about four or five *really* favorite authors in SF, one of whom is female, the rest of whom are male. (Octavia Butler/Peter David/Neil Gaiman/Terry Goodkind.) I don't really see any of them as writing for a "male" audience -- when it comes to the three men, I can't see them writing for a gendered audience at all, and I can say that with definite certainty in the case of Terry Goodkind. But all authors, I think, write to please themselves first and foremost, and therefore, in some sense, all female authors are writing for a female audience and all male authors are writing for a male audience.

Hm.

Actually, this has become more and more interesting to me as Kal and I are talking about where we can submit our turning-into-a-novel thing once it's done; if a gay publisher is marketing to men, can something written by women, which has gotten overwhelmingly positive reactions by women, succeed with its target audience? Who do we market this sort of book to?

Where was I...?


And so, they don't write about the things women are interested in, like the characters and their lives, their relationships, how events really affect them, how they deal with pain, and so forth. I mean, how many space battles can you read about before you nod off and start dreaming about the two guys who were shooting at each other fucking each other instead?

Oh, man, tell me about it. This reminds me of the class I'm taking (still!) on the American Revolution; I'm fascinated by the economy, the day-to-day lives of Americans, the political struggles, and so on, but when I hit the chapter where battle after battle is described in excruciating detail, my brain shut down and refused to look at my homework. :/ (However, I am not mentally slashing George Washington and Nathaniel Greene.)

I can totally understand that! It's what draws me to Harry/Draco, and to Obi/Bail too, for that matter. It can be done well with Qui/Obi, but that doesn't seem to be the typical route for a fan fic plot, unfortunately.

You know, I've actually come to the conclusion that part of what's making TPM lose its appeal for me is that everyone in TPM seems to have A Role To Play. Qui is the Master, Obi is the Apprentice (at least at this point in the timeline), Bail is the Young Senator/Prince... everyone has such a fixed position that it's hard to ask them to relate to each other without those fixed roles getting in the way. When writing LotRPS, you can easily have characters go in and out of roles (King/Steward), but it's something to toy with, to play with, rather than the identity-defining plotpoint it tends to be in TPM. You very rarely see Obi and Qui interact just as Obi and Qui. Actually, this is what was so stunning about that thing Emu wrote in February -- gah, what was it called? -- the fact that they were relating to each other as people rather than as Master and Apprentice, or even as Jedi. You don't see that very often, and although in some ways that's good -- the power misbalance is part of what makes TPM compelling -- in other ways it can be frustrating. There comes a point where I feel like we've done all that can be done with exploring the Master/Apprentice dynamic. (Of course, I say this, and I'm busily writing several different Master/Slave D/s arcs, so maybe not...)

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

yes, and you know what -- they aren't as funny when you're reading them just to yourself. They're much funnier in a group. Still, maybe I should post excerpts on my LJ to encourage timid writers....

[jenab.livejournal.com]

In the past year I have found myself drifting away from Q/O because there seems to be very few new ideas and too many fandom cliches in use. Now I tend to read almost any pairing with Obi in it and I am finding some good het pairings for Obi namely Siri and Padme.

My focus is also on post ATOC fic of which there is very little, but is an interesting playground for all sorts of new ideas and pairings.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Now I tend to read almost any pairing with Obi in it...

I hear ya, sister! The more I think about it, the more I realize that I'm into any Obi-centric pairing. Obi doing anybody, male, female, whatever. Must be that crush on Ewan...

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I am, as usual, generalizing! ;^) But I do think that the stereotypical SF reader is a geeky guy, and that's who the dim-witted publishers force their writers to write for. Just as the publishers of bodice-ripper romances force their writers to stick to a formula because they believe that's what their stereotypical (lonely, bored, middle-aged woman) reader wants.

Re: publishing a "slash" novel. There was a discussion about this on MA last spring, wasn't there? Some folks had some negative experience with publishers along those lines. I *sincerely* hope you two give that a serious go! That would be soooo awesome!

However, I am not mentally slashing George Washington and Nathaniel Greene.

What do you wanna bet that somebody has, though? *grin*

There comes a point where I feel like we've done all that can be done with exploring the Master/Apprentice dynamic.

I know what you mean, but I'm not ready to throw in the towel on the pairing. I think that there are plenty of great stories out there, and people just need the incentive to write them. THe interesting thing about TPM is that there are tremendous possibilities, in and out of canon. In some fandoms, people just don't stray from fandom, but in TPM, anything goes. Like QAJ, for example! *wink*

And yeah, I've got a big Q/O thing on the backburner too...

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Good idea! Like, "things *not* to write in your slash fic"! *shudder*

[helens78]

Just as the publishers of bodice-ripper romances force their writers to stick to a formula because they believe that's what their stereotypical (lonely, bored, middle-aged woman) reader wants.

You know, I used to defend bodice-rippers, having read a good number of good ones. Recently, though, I went back to one of the ones I remembered as being quite good, and could not for the life of me get through it. It's called "A Knight In Shining Armor," and seventy-five pages in, the lead female character is sobbing at the foot of a big white marble statue, because her crappy boyfriend and his crappy daughter just took off with her purse, leaving her stranded in a church in rural England.

OK, that part makes sense, right? Hell, I'd cry.

But then she starts going Send me a knight in shining armor, and I nearly threw my book out the car window. Bleah.

Am I just pickier after reading so much slash? Because I've read a lot of fanfiction that gives more interesting relationship dynamics than those, and I had no patience for someone waiting for someone to come rescue her. Just none whatever.

Re: publishing a "slash" novel. There was a discussion about this on MA last spring, wasn't there? Some folks had some negative experience with publishers along those lines. I *sincerely* hope you two give that a serious go! That would be soooo awesome!

The going is definitely going to happen. Kal and I are going to prod at each other to work on original fic, and as for the big slash novel -- that's definitely going to happen, just a matter of when. (She's going to come visit in a month or two if all goes well, so that might be a good time to talk editing if we haven't gotten that far by then... hm.)

I know what you mean, but I'm not ready to throw in the towel on the pairing. I think that there are plenty of great stories out there, and people just need the incentive to write them. The interesting thing about TPM is that there are tremendous possibilities, in and out of canon. In some fandoms, people just don't stray from fandom, but in TPM, anything goes. Like QAJ, for example! *wink*

True, true! I'm really hoping that once QAJ gets going in full swing again, I'll be less restless about TPM fandom.

[sileas.livejournal.com]

I wonder if in part it's because Harry Potter is novels and Star Wars is movies? A novel is a much more detailed, textured format than a movie can ever be. A movie is always more surface, leaving more room for interpretation. So it seems to me, anyway. And probably also explains why I have no interest in HP fanfic, though I adore the novels.

Mmm. That's interesting. But for me, it's the opposite I guess. My fascination with Star Wars reached it's highpoint when I discovered the books and comics. I loved the movies when I was little, but I would have never read fan fiction about them if I just had the movies to fall back on.
It's the same with HP. I like the visual representation of the movies, but the books are vital. I'd sooner follow book-canon than movie canon.
What I don't understand is why I couldn't get into LotR fandom. I read a couple of fan fiction pieces and then gave up, yet it had books and a movie.

[sileas.livejournal.com]

I think it was jedirita who said that it's not hard to write good fanfic in TPM because the profic and the scripts of the films aren't exactly stellar examples of literary achievement.

*nods* We don't have much material with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. The JA books and here and there a small part in an adult book.
I'm probably less tolerant of bad fic in the OT(original trilogy) part of Star Wars. I've tried reading X-wing fic because I thoroughly enjoyed the books, but the fic wasn't what I expected.
The main thing about Star Wars books is that they are written by a large number of people. Leia is not written exactly the same as by the other authors. So, to me, Leia can have a great deal of different reactions to the same situation in fan fiction, simply because she is quite diverse in profic. (Luke is another one of those characters who never stays in character.)
As for HP... I think Rowling is great at characterization. Ron is like that, Harry is so, Hermione would act this way in this situation. Her views on the characters are the *only* view of characters acceptable. If a fan fiction author does funny things to a character, then I start picking it up real soon.

Don't know if that made much sense. :-D Damn hot over here.