stupid monday deserves a kick in the head...

[tommygirl]

So I can't stop staring at this picture of Jared taken by vorpalblades. He is so adorable. Just adorable. Can he come to Philadelphia?

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medie is hosting an impromptu multifandom drabble meme. Go play. I'm hoping to if I can get past my own writing laze of a block.

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Apparently, the whole slash vs. het & gen debate is alive and well. ladybug218 has opened up her journal for discussion of the topic (no flaming!) because she's as flummoxed as I am by the whole thing.

I'll never understand what's so horrible about het. I love the slash for a lot of pairings...but I also love the het. For me, it's all about character chemistry. And I get that we're all different and that different things ping for each of us...so why does it matter so much to some people that what works for one person is a het couple? Why is het so frowned upon by some people?

I guess it goes back to my belief that bad writing is bad writing. Slash writers aren't automatically better because they write slash and vice versa. You either are capable of writing a good story or you're not, and genre designation won't change that.

Comments

[acciopotter.livejournal.com]

I can't stand slash vs. het debates or fandom wars. Most of the people vehemently defending slash are het themselves, and it just seems like a huge display of hypocrisy to me. Not only that, but it borders on censorship, to be so critical of anyone else's shipping preferences. It's bizarre and annoying.

[storydivagirl.livejournal.com]

Exactly...it's all so dumb to me. We all have our personal preferences. Just scroll on by the things you don't like yourself.

[acciopotter.livejournal.com]

It's completely lame and limits the enjoyment of fandom! Boo on them! LOL.

[yahtzee63.livejournal.com]

I'll never understand what's so horrible about het. I love the slash for a lot of pairings...but I also love the het. For me, it's all about character chemistry. And I get that we're all different and that different things ping for each of us...so why does it matter so much to some people that what works for one person is a het couple? Why is het so frowned upon by some people?

I guess it goes back to my belief that bad writing is bad writing. Slash writers aren't automatically better because they write slash and vice versa. You either are capable of writing a good story or you're not and genre designation won't change that.

Amen, sister.

Some virulent anti-het people like to say that with het you get shmoopy babyfic, but (a) with MPREG, slash can and does deliver this too, (b) not all het is like that by a long shot, and (c) as long as we're throwing stones, which genre do we blame for soulbonded wereleopard stories, hmmm?

[tinylegacies.livejournal.com]

(c) as long as we're throwing stones, which genre do we blame for soulbonded wereleopard stories, hmmm?

*dies laughing*

[storydivagirl.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Dude, I've seen some seriously over-the-top schmoop in teh Sam/Dean community, involving single emo tears and everything...so it's possible to write slash and do it as poorly as some of the het fic out there.

[romanticalgirl.livejournal.com]

Both your links go to the Jared picture. Not that most of your flist will mind, I imagine. :)

[storydivagirl.livejournal.com]

Whoops. All fixed now, thanks for the head's up. Honestly, I'll blame Jared for infecting my brain with his hotness that it's all I see.

[alliecat8.livejournal.com]

Ooh, slash vs. het debates scare me, because I'm afraid that whatever I say, it'll be the wrong thing. I'm not gonna get into the current discussion in ladybug218's journal, but I feel safe to babble a little bit here. For some unknown reason, I've discovered (late in life) that I'm utterly het-challenged. I can love a het couple with all my heart (I was a complete sucker for Izzie/Denny on Grey's), but I could never, ever write het. I've tried and tried, and I've even written a whole fanfic Nano novel with a Jack/Juliet pairing, but I'm afraid I'll never finish it because I left out all the love/sex scenes and I can't make myself go back to them. I think it has something to do with me cringing at writing the names of girl-parts. Even when I try to finesse the words I feel 1)squeamish, and 2)silly. Which is NOT to say that I have anything against girl parts; I'm kind of fond of my own. (Is that TMI?) I'm just too...inhibited?...bashful? Or am I some of the things that make me *gigglesnort*: demure, modest, shrinking violet(!) -- yeah, I'm using my thesaurus. ;) But how can that be, when I write the most graphic m/m slash there is? Boy parts? Love 'em! Bring 'em on, baby! And I don't blush or shrink like a violet at all! Clearly I make no sense to myself, let alone anyone else, so I have no business participating in this debate.

*shrinks away demurely*

(edited due to an embarrassing Freudian slip)

[tinylegacies.livejournal.com]

I very rarely write smut in any of my fics, regardless of whether they are het or slash. It's not something that I find easy to write and I don't generally find it integral to my stories.

So I don't see why you couldn't still write het fic without including the sex parts :)

[storydivagirl.livejournal.com]

I see nothing wrong with anyone choosing not to write het and/or slash. It seems to just be when people feel like the other person is wrong for their own choices that I get annoyed.

But dude, you can write lovely het without the smut if you want! God knows that's what I do. I'm terrible with the smut.

[vampyreranger.livejournal.com]

I certainly prefer slash but the big thing is chemistry. I wish people would understand that it's *okay* if a man and a woman go together better than two men or two women.

[storydivagirl.livejournal.com]

Word. And I also understand watching shows with slash goggles if that's your preference. But it doesn't make you better than someone who watches the same thing and likes a het couple.

[vampyreranger.livejournal.com]

Absolutely.

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's anything horrible about het. I used to love romance stories, but I never really found them hot. I found the sex scenes to be, well, boring. *g* I'm of the "one guy hot, two guys hotter" school of thought when it comes to that sort of thing. This does not even have to involve anything NC-17.

I started out reading het (fanfic), and in most new fandoms, I usually started out reading anything and everything--or I did. I've been reading it enough now that I tend to know my own preferences, so I tend towards stories I know I'm more likely to like.

In my first fandom, there were two major het couples. I liked the fic written about one couple, but not the other. I've come to realize since that this is because the first couple was written a bit more like *good* slash stories--in general. I read my share of horrible stories about that couple, too, so it's not that all the good writers flocked to the one couple, but more that one couple tended to be portrayed in a way I liked and the other wasn't.

In other fandoms, I often found het fic written that was more like the couple I didn't like and very little (none?) that was like the couple I *did* like. *g*

I think a lot of this is just personal preference. It's not that I think het is terrible, but just that I tend not to like the majority of stories that I've read so I'm less likely *now* to seek out het stories. But...this is the same with other types of stories as well. I tend not to like kid fic either, but if I happen upon a story there's always a possibility that I'd like it. I don't like action-adventure stories all that much or AU fics or any number of things. None of these would be my first choice for reading, but there are *always* exceptions. I'd just usually look for something more to my taste (angst, drama, character stories, etc.).

Also, I'm usually only reading fic because I love a certain character, usually a guy, and I'm really only interested in reading stories about that one character. Sometimes it's pairing-specific and sometimes it's not, and I probably read as much gen as anything else. Usually I'll stick with gen and slash, though, because those tend to be the stories I like best and I'm more likely to find a story I'll like that features my Very Special Character. *g*

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

Adding: In the SG-1 fandom, I read Jack/Sam, Daniel/Sam, Daniel/Janet, Jack/Sarah, Daniel/Sha're, and even Daniel/Other fic. Even after Jack/Daniel became my cuddly OTP, I still sometimes read Jack/Sarah or Daniel/Sha're if it looked interesting. And Daniel/Janet. I tended to shy away from Jack/Sam and Daniel/Sam after a while mainly because I tended to dislike the way Sam was often portrayed. There are probably some great stories written for those pairings and I *have* read some great Sam gen stories and Daniel/Sam friendship stories, but I would still tend towards the slash or, even more likely a lot of the time, the gen. *g*

[storydivagirl.livejournal.com]

Interesting. But the great thing about you is that you did test the waters and came to form you're own preferences based on experience rather than assumption. And i think that's one of the main problems with this debate is that some people (on both sides) really are just basing every thought on things they know nothing about...and they could be missing out on something they might like.

Personally, I'm of the belief that fandom should be fun...and that means reading the stories you want without guilt or stress. But to me, that also means that you respect every other person's right to that same thing.

::gets off pulpit and reads slash:: er...

[dragonsinger.livejournal.com]

Why is het so frowned upon by some people?

That's what I'd like to know. So, what kicked off this round of the debate?