Subject: My Theory
Author:
Posted on: 2015-05-08 14:15:00 UTC

I wonder if the reason Bad Slash is a separate category at the PPC is because of our LotR origins. LotR has a lot more male characters than female ones, so if you're a badfic writer interested in het you're more likely to create a Sue than write about a canon character. On the other hand, there are enough popular male characters that badfic writers interested in slash can just write about them. The Original Series is also somewhat low on Character Replacements, I've noticed, with Loli!Arwen being the only one I remember off the top of my head. I'm not really familiar enough with LotR to say whether it's a difference between it and fandoms like Harry Potter that are rife with them, or if it's just a case of evolution within the PPC. So the line between Mary Sues and Bad Slash mainly seems to be the presence of a poorly-written OC.

To be honest, most slash I've seen that I'd consider mission-worthy is OoC enough that at least one of the characters is replaced. But I'm not a big fan of slash in general, so it's possible I'm just being overly lenient. I have seen some pretty bad het fics that aren't really Sueish, but most of them don't strike me as good mission material; they're mostly short, sappy, and unmemorable.

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