As long as it's a goodfic, anything goes. And as long as it's realistic, no ten-second romances or anything; I'm vehemently against the concept of 'love at first sight' and related things. Love takes time or hardship, and lots of fics apply neither of the two to the pair. These are normally considered badfic.

Mostly, though, I prefer nonromance plots or ones where the romance is not the main plot. I like stories more when the ships, canon or not, occur as an aside instead of dominating the story. Large or small, it's subplots most of the time. After all, it seems somewhat silly to have a world where people live for relationships alone.

Slashfic sounds like all the characters are being murdered and they need to solve the mystery before everyone is dead.

And het just sounds like a pairing between a hat and a net, which, sadly, is exactly the kind of nonsense I expect from fanfic writers in general.


I am, however, always willing to read a good pairing, and whether the characters work together matters to me more than the statuses of the individuals involved.


Heck, I once read a well-written pairing between Plank and the Companion Cube, after Johnny had been abducted by GLaDOS.

I'll read het or slash, bad or good.

Preferably good.

I think the company I keep has changed me, I used to avoid slash like the plague. But now I do rather like it.

...as long as all those involved are in character, no Sues or Stus are involved, no canon relationships are broken up, all the characters are consenting adults, and there's no incest. This, of course, means I like about four percent of the het/slash out there, dislike a further thirty-five percent, and am completely squicked by everything else.

This is mostly because I dislike romance fics as a whole, and whenever I see a summary that includes either slash or yaoi (how on earth do you pronounce that, anyway?), I always get the impression that said fic is entirely about the slash*. Which, to me, is boring and likely to involve canon rape (as is shipping in general). I know this isn't always the case, but I don't want to wade through the 999 pieces of crap to find the single gem.

*This applies to yuri as well, but it's a lot less common.

But I'm a lover of romance before I'm a lover of yaoi. I love canon het couples, and ship them with a burning. I'll admit I do prefer slash (both femme and male), I suppose because I find the dynamique a bit interesting, and it's not something I'm exposed to very often in RL. I can see het couples whenever I want. Also, I'll be honest. It's hot.

That said, I do write and ship het just as much as I do slash. Most of my RP pairings are het, I write both in fanfic, and I'll d'awwww over Sakura/Syaoran just as much as I do Touya/Yukito. So long as I can believe the pairing, I'll ship anything.

When it comes to the NC-17 stuff, I prefer slash to het. Maybe because I am more detatched from it, somehow. I don't know.

And so ends my ramble.

I feel it may be time to point out, in response to a notion more than one people have hinted at subscribing to, that there is such a thing as Good Slash.

Some people, it seems (whether here or in IMs on the topic), object to the fact that slash pairings simply aren't canonical, or that in slash canonical pairings are disregarded, or even that to make a character non-straight is to make them wildly OOC. I invite all of these people to check the standard DBS charge list.

If slash is Good Slash, then canonical het pairings are acknowledged. If a canonical het pairing stands in the way of a slash pairing, then in Good Slash the het relationship will be dissolved via a well structured and well written plot, with all due care and respect paid to the source material. Given that the whole point of fanfiction is to alter aspects of canon, I see no problem here.

"But they're canonically straight" is one I'm not touching right now, because it's been done to death, and it's the insistence upon the heteronormative status quo inherent in that statement that, in part, drives me to slash.

And finally, the OOC thing. In Good Slash, the characters are not out of character. This is because Good Slash is, by definition, well written slash, and well written fic keeps the characters in character.

So, bearing all this in mind, and seconding Trojie's point that the Happy AU Where Everyone Is Gay is a great big cross on the "Bad" side of the equation, I can't see any reason for objection to slash pairings in fiction. If a fic's solely about the pairing, and that pairing's not your cup of tea, fair play, but some slash on the side, for the sake of realism? Who could object to that?

Oh, and while we're at it, is it time to borrow ffr's standard disclaimer: "Except in Torchwood"? Because anyone objecting to slash fic in that fandom is clearly not watching the same show as the rest of us.

When it comes to reading, I'm not really a 'shipper in any sense of the word. Romance is fine if it happens, but I won't be disappointed if there is none at all. Slash, het... it's all the same to me. Both can be done well, both can make me want to vomit.

Funny thing about me, though: I dig romance that arises in role-play--especially screwed-up, complicated romance--but I don't particularly enjoy writing it on my own. Again, straight or gay makes no difference. I have brought characters to the brink of relationships only to take them away, and I have created established couples (successes and failures), but I don't do putting them together. There's just something weird and maybe fake about it. I dunno. *shrug*

~Neshomeh

On a fundamental, subconscious level, I don't believe in slash, in much the same way that I don't believe in breathing underwater.

This does not mean that I run screaming from the merest whiff of same-gender interaction; I have no objection to interaction, friendship, even situations that look compromising, between two persons of the same gender. I do get a bit antsy at, for instance, Twelfth Night and the like, for the implications that naturally arise.

That said, I tend to avoid het, as well, if it appears to be approaching the realm of the lemon.

because, while I do have some gay relationships in my stories, I don't think I have just them. I have het as the main thing because, obviously, that's what happens in real life and if I'm trying to keep my characters real, I'm not going to have them all turn gay in an instant. I have played with a few small fics set around a gay character, but those never amount to anything.

I'm also more comfortable with femslash. Don't know why. Could be I've read more bad slash than bad femslash. All I know is that the majority of my gay/bisexual characters are women and there's only one male/male relationship I can think of and I can't actually remember what fic that was in.

Honestly, though, I don't give a toss. I'll read good stories, regardless of what the hell is happening in it. The reason I stay away from slash a bit is possibly due to seeing more bad fics attempt to pair off two random characters who hate each other and do it appallingly. I'd type more, but I keep thinking of something else to add mid-paragraph and that makes me forget what I was saying to begin with.

... I'm a slasher. Always have been, always will be, since the beginning of my stumblings into fandom.

However, there are places in my heart for het pairings, both canon and non-canon, which I cherish and love and dislike seeing wrecked. It's just ... those all tend to be in fandoms I don't actively read or write for.

Reading het almost bores me, to be honest. Het is ... well, the majority. A well-written slashfic can have so many little edges of 'forbidden' and 'what will our friends/neighbours/relatives/coworkers think?' and all that society and psychology stuff to it ... that's what I like.

Which is not to say that all those things cannot be found in het fic, but slashfic also has, for me at least, one other feature: the slightly less literary and more self-serving aspect of, I am a straight woman, I find men attractive, and you know what's more attractive than one man? Two men!

As far as I'm concerned though, there doesn't have to be 'het VS slash'. They can coexist. Maybe not in the same person's brain, necessarily, but one is not better than the other. They are different.

Actually I've read some lovely fics that centre on multiple partnerships - both slash and het. There's nothing worse than fic set in the Magical World Where Everyone Is Gay and all the couples happen to be same-sex.

/end ramble as it's nearly midnight

- A possibly slightly incoherent Trojie, who isn't keeping up with her intarwub responsibilities well lately...

I have a great problem whenever this question comes up because, in spite of the best efforts of our dear Pads, I just can't read slash without hitting the "back" button.

I have nothing against it - really, I would like to strangle the next person who accuses me of being a homophobe, because there is a DIFFERENCE between not approving of something and just not wanting to be a part of it - I liken it to the difference between knowing your parents had to have sex to concieve you and actually watching them do it. That's how I feel.

So as you can guess, I don't read slash in any form. I just side-step it. I can't say I understand why people write it, but neither can I understand why people write non-canon pairings - and yes, that question has been anwered for me several times by several people, so I get the theory, but I myself have never really been inclined towards any uncanonical pairings.

I think it has something to do with the way I percieve the original canon stories themselves; I see them as a cohesive whole, and if Character A 'originally' (ie, in canon) fell in love with Character B, then I feel like something major would have to change in their personality/characterisation for them to fall for someone else. This may, however, be related to the kinds of stories I read; I tend to go for more fairytale-like interpretations, too. I'm sure it doesn't help that, Dumbledore/Grindelwald aside, none of my main fandoms involve slash pairings of any sort.

I'm rambling now, but is it making sense? To answer your question directly, my own sexuality - as a woman attracted to men - basically controls the sorts of relationships I like to read about. I can't really understand(/internalise) why other people have other tastes, but that doesn't bother me in itself - I'm quite happy to live and let live.

It is an interesting phenomena, though, and I'll be more than interested to read everyone else's opinions.

A lot of what I read is femmeslash, but I wouldn't say I'm a slasher. If I'm looking for mindless romance, or *winces* smut, it's gonna be femmeslash, chances are, since I'm a lesbian. There's also a side of the fact that it's a lot easier to find f/f romance on the internet.

That said, I have no dislike of het or m/m slash, and I'll read either one if it's good. Really, I care more about your general writing, and how well you portray the characters, than said characters' genders.

I mainly stick to reading het fanfictions, just because most of the canonical pairings in my favorite book series are het. I don't mind original fiction slash, but I don't see much of it around, either. I really can't read slash fanfiction because, for some reason, I can't stand the thought of my favorite canonical pairings disappearing. The nausea I feel at the thought of a Draco/Hermione fic is the same amount I feel at the thought of a Draco/Harry fic. To me, once there is a canonical pairing, as stated or as written by the author, I think it should stay that way in fanfiction. At least in what I read, fanfiction wise. Yeah, the shipping wars are scary, but I don't join in them, if possible.
Hermione/Ron, Astoria/Draco, and Ginny/Harry FTW!
I understand the slash fanfics with characters who didn't have canonical pairings and sort of implied what type of pairing they would prefer. *coughUblazcough* Those I can stand, but they are few and far between.

I honestly adore both gay and straight romances - and anything in between - as long as it's done right.

I'm lean quite heavily towards slash, personally. It makes up the bulk of what I read and write on the internet. I see nothing wrong with het though, especially now that I've started looking at the het subtext in my main canon, as well as the slash.

My main reason for avoiding het fics is the fact that very few het pairings interest me, and it's pretty hard to find well-written fics for the ones that do. Plus the het shipping wars are pretty scary, especially for someone like me who can't pick a 'side' and stick with it.

To me, it really doesn't matter as long as it's at least somewhat plausible of a pairing. (Snape and Dumbledore? No, not seeing it.) I think I lean toward het more just because I can just relate to it better. That or girl-on-girl, but people don't seem to write as many of those.

If I wanted het, dear, I'd fall off the celibacy wagon (again). Slash, however, I cannot have, and so must simply read instead.

Incidentally, you know Trojie and I are winding you up when we say we don't believe in het, right? Well, mostly winding you up at any rate.