Subject: het? ewwww!
Author:
Posted on: 2009-08-03 21:55:00 UTC
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.
Recently I've been noticing more and more slash fans that, at the very least, dislike fictional heterosexuality in all its forms. On the other hand I've also become more aware of the opposite attitude amongst het writers. Very few writers I've seen are actually willing to consider both het and slash as viable options. I know it's probably just me paying more attention, but it's an interesting phenomenon nonetheless.
Het fans of the PPC, how do you feel about slash? Slashers, what do you think of het? Is anyone here an equal fan of both het and slash? If you're firmly on one side, what puts you off reading the other, if there's a specific reason that you feel like sharing?
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.
it seems somewhat silly to have a world where people live for relationships alone.
Mostly true, except when the protagonist is a teenage girl. Obsession with potential romances is a common theme of those years.
I was pondering last night why I like plot in books, but I'm less fussed when I'm reading on the screen. Didn't come to any conclusions at all, except possibly that fic with lots of plot tends to be on the long side, and I've more patience for a long read in book form. Will keep mulling over that one, though, because it's clearly not just me, if the majority of fanfic's anything to go by.
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.
And they do have reasons for being the terms - slash because of the use of the / character, e.g. the classic pairing: Kirk/Spock.
And het is an abbreviation for 'heterosexual', as I'm sure you can guess :)
Just because that's the terms used in general, and they make sense, doesn't make it sound any less stupid.
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.
I hadn't thought about it before, but that's the impression I get, too - if "slash" is in the summary, I think it's all about a slash relationship.
Though in all fairness, that's probably because so many of the 'fics out there centre on a romance of some sort - if I see "Harry/Ginny" in a summary, I tend to expect it to be a romance as well, or at least focused on them. Sad thing is that it's very often true :(
It's a good point, I'll give you that. Unfortunately if we don't label a work as slash, then people complain.
So where do you stand on the romance fics, then, Sedri? Because there are zillions of the buggers, and a comparatively small amount of non-romance fics - do you generally favour the former or the latter?
Possibly a Hopeless Romantic, but I'd like to think I have some sense. That said, if you're asking what I like to read, then it'd be lovely to have more stories around that don't involve romance at all... but then, it's rather hard to cut it out entirely, since all character interaction between a pair (or not-pair, as the case may be) can be affected by the percieved relationship - body language, terms of endearment, and so on.
As for labels, maybe we should start a habit of labelling all stories as "slash" OR "het" OR "no romance" - treat the "het" label as being as necessary as the "slash" label and see if it catches on?
I dunno about you, dear, but we always do label our het as such. Not that we write just het by itself, but if it's in there with the slash, then we warn for both.
Sorry, the phrasing was unclear. I meant, why not nag every author and community we know to do the same thing?
...of slash/het fics that aren't romantic?
I ask because everyone here seems to be working on the assumption that slash/het has to be of the romantic variety. This isn't necessarily true, especially in a one-shot PWP or a fic dealing with a subject such as rape or stalking.
One reason I'm fond of obscure pairings that are neither confirmed nor denied nor vaguely alluded to in the least either way in canon, is that one can have fics with an established relationship in, without people being able to say "that's OOC!" And if you've got an established relationship in there, the fic doesn't have to be filled with all the getting-together romantic wossnames and first-time angst and such. It can have plot instead, and be like any book or fic in which Plot Occurs and two of the characters happen to be together.
(Of course, this does not stop me from being a sucker for a well-written first time fic, but constant romance just gets boring.)
Where there's an established relationship but it's not ABOUT the relationship.
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.
Having reread that, I have had an epiphany.
I really dislike the Happy AU Where Everyone Is Straight.
Unfortunately, practically all het falls into this category.
I think you ought to start some kind of flag-waving group for Good Slash. Every time this sort of discussion comes up, the notion of Good Slash tends to be forgotten, and you're right - that's wrong. Looking back at my own post, I should have said something along those lines, and didn't. Bad me.
Sorry, Pads.
S'alright, Sedriface - you're such an avid anti-slasher I can see why you'd forget.
Thing is, I'm not entirely sure that Ansela's right in the original post, when she says she's seen a lot of anti-het slashers and anti-slash, er, hetters? The best slash usually has some het in there too, and that doesn't bother us slashers in the least. Sure, I tell her off for writing smelly het, but it's mostly a joke born of my defensiveness about slash. And the defensiveness comes in part from the inequality; no one minds a bit of het on the side in their slash, but people get very vocal about not wanting the slightest hint of slash in their het.
After all, if homosexual relationships had been acknowledged and accepted centuries ago, we'd be used to it, but since it hasn't, they're still making a big stupid fuss about the matter, and a lot of us grew up without more than a vague theoretical knowledge of the subject - which is why I still find myself jarred a bit when there's suddenly slash in a story, even if it's just a background mention.
By "jarred" I don't mean "repulsed" or "offended", just surprised, and I don't like that, but it happens because I wasn't conditioned for it. Hopefully, in ten years, I and the vast majority of the world will be able to read it without batting an eye.
One would hope. I suspect it may take rather more than ten years though. Unless they're marketed as LGBT, it's pretty hard to find a book today in which characters just happen to be non-heterosexual. I'm hoping this may change within a few decades as more and more of the slash writers who've cropped up over the past decade start writing original fiction and getting it published, but even then there's the publishing industry's standards to take into account.
In practically all of Marcedes Lackey`s books there is at least one slash pairing amoung the het. Most of the time it is just a background mention, but some times it is the main character.
She is also not discrimenatory in gender as well. She slashes both. About one couple in ten in her stories are slash, which I think is about right statistic.
These books are aimed at an older teen to adult level of reading (I read most of them when I was younger though). But since she writes fantasy, that maybe one of the reasons that she goes by unnoticed in that regaurd.
Leto
I admit that I sort of had plans to be part of the problem in this case; I was going to write a teen-level book, featuring two characters who acted as gay for each other as I could possibly make them without actually holding their wedding on stage, just so I could pretend to be horrified when people asked me if I meant it that way. Yeah, my sense of humour is a little odd.
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.
Ah, canon pairings, one of the most abused aspects of fanfiction.
I'm lucky in that the two confirmed, named canon pairings in my main fandom aren't an obstacle to slash by the main canon timeline. Both of the wives in those pairings are dead, one to an illness and the other protecting her son. Somehow my fandom seems to be sane enough that those two women are mostly respected, partly due to the effects they had on the characters that they interacted with.
As for your Harry Potter examples... I've never really been a fan of Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny myself. The former is built on the fact that they argue with each other constantly and the latter is, to me, Harry trying to be like James by having a wife who looks like Lily. Remus/Tonks is a pairing I definitely hate that, as I said to Pads in chat earlier, seems to me like JK was reading fanfiction while she was writing. It seems deliberately forced in to piss off the Sirius/Remus slashers.
As for slash with characters with no canonical pairings, again I'm lucky in that my main fandom is a shounen manga/anime, where romance isn't really a priority. There are hints at one-sided crushes and massive amounts of manipulated love, but very few confirmed love interests, giving me plenty of leeway as to who I pair characters with.
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.
So we can't interest you in Seamus/Dumbledore then? Well, darn.
I'm not hugely taken with femslash, but I think that's because, like het, I can go out and actually experience it if I so choose.
You have a point. As I'm in a serious relationship, I really can't go out, find some pretty thing, and have one fun night together.
Plus, "real-life" "femslash" tends to be two dumb college girls just doing it for the attention. That kind of stuff irks me.
I honestly think that fictional femslash, het, or slash are more glorified and exciting than the real experience. If I can't be involved, I'd rather read a well-written love scene than watch some bimbos make out for everyone's entertainment.
Oh, very much agreed. I'm a slasher through and through, but actually watching gay porn? Nah. I'd rather have a cuppa and watch EastEnders.
Certainly true that the fiction tends to be a bit idealised and what have you. Probably comes as a bit of a let down to anyone who's grown up reading it and then gets their leg over. No bluebirds, no rainbows, no passing out from pleasure. Although the no foot long wossnames probably comes as a relief.
That reminds me, I think my favorite page on the Wiki was the DubeLube. I'm sure inexperienced people don't appreciate fic writers messing with that important little detail.
Yes, it's Trojie's pet project, that page. We do our best to keep it up to date.
As one of the contributors to that page, I've learned that there's not much that badfic writers won't do to characters in the name of sex, and that if I'm going to take tips I should stick to the handful of writers I trust.
I still read about it regularly and make whatever filthy jokes I can think of, but the actual process sounds supremely gross to me. Not sure if that's related to my Aspergers', or if I'm genuinely a non-sexual person, or if I'm just a late bloomer - I kinda doubt the latter, I turn twenty in less than two months and I'd have thought I'd have had SOME reaction other than "ick" by now - but if anyone asks, I'm blaming fanfic.
Then I met Barid. Viewing another person as an extension of myself changed my mind about some things. I was 22 by then, and our meeting was the result of some fairly singular circumstances in the first place, so you've got time. {= )
I did worry that badfic, especially of the C*l*br**n strain, would've had some kind of negative effect on my sex life, but things like that simply don't enter my mind when it comes to the point.
Mind you, the whole thing isn't necessarily all it's cracked up to be--I had some angst over that--but there are very nice parts just the same. It's simply a question of figuring out your own self and making the most of it.
If you're open to it, it can happen.
~Neshomeh
Somehow the fanfic unaccountably fails to mention the array of embarrassing/disturbing/hilarious (delete as appropriate) sound effects.
for not encountering those fanfics that do.
But even then, so long as it's consenting.
But I still think I'm gonna be steering clear. I don't need the added complication in my life.
I maintain celibacy for just that reason. Well, mostly, anyway.
Don't get me wrong, it's not like I think there's anything inherently "dirty" or shameful about them. But there's nothing dirty or shameful about one's kidneys or the inside of one's nostril either, and that *still* doesn't mean I want to spend time examining said parts.
We may have to differ on that one. Internal organs are fascinating, to my mind, and there's nothing quite like taking a carcass apart to see how it all fits together. (I blame bleedthrough from Trojie's brain.)
I'll grant that genitals really aren't terribly aesthetically pleasing, though.
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.