Mind you, the ones who really get my goat are the ones who decry het because, you know, women are icky and coming between the true love of boy x and boy y, or are all Mary Sues. I'll admit, that I don't read het all that often. Probably because, since I'm not in the het parts of fandom, I don't have the know-how of how to find the good stuff, so end up just reading whatever I can come across, which can lead to some really bad stuff. I think that may be why some slash writers say that. Because if you just go to the local fandom archive and start looking up het, (or slash, or gen) then you're not necessarily getting the "good" ones. Also, I've got to admit, 90% of the time an original character is introduced as a love interest (regardless of whether or not it's het or slash) it comes off as a Mary Sue/Gary Stu.
As someone who writes gen, I admit that I was initially quite taken aback when I got feedback that referred to a romance in a short that, as far as I was concerned, was pure comedy. I went back and I looked and looked and looked again at the piece to see where I’d put the romance in, but ultimately could see none. In the end I decided that the reviewer had their romance goggles on so tightly that it coloured everything they saw. One of the posts I read about people talking about this is that most slashers, when they watch the show, they see the characters as slashy. In Stargate Atlantis (my fandom) John and Rodney (my pairing) spend a lot of time snarking, and teasing each other. They'll give each other playful slaps, and toss disses at each other all the time. That's canon. But those are things that most slashers in my fandom/pairing find slashy. But they're canon, so if someone where to write a fic, where John and Rodney are out walking 5 miles on a mission where they're teasing and laughing at each other, *they* would probably call it gen. They boys aren't making sexual jokes, or talking about their hot and heavy night in bed last night, but they are showing an intimacy in their interactions that so many of us find slashy. So while you the gen writer don't see any romance between them, if you're writing them in character, a slasher is going to find it slashy, just as they'd find the show slashy.
My problem is, though, that so much of fandom is devoted to romance, and to slash in particular, that I don’t feel like I should have to roll out the welcome wagon to make it safe by effectively lying about my motives behind writing a piece. It's insulting, both to me and to you. And, of course, I would never say you had to. Just that I don't think it's an insult to do so. Like I said, if you're writing something in character to how we see them on the show, a slasher is going to find it slashy. And I don't necessarily see it as lying about your motives, just saying that you're not going to be angry if someone doesn't see things the way you do (I wrote this as gen, but some might see it as pre-slash). If that bothers you, then you definitely shouldn't say that it's preslash.
Besides, who’s out there making the world safe and welcoming for genfic authors and readers? There are whole archives out there that don’t even have a gen category. Umm, actually, in my current fandom (my only other big fandom was Queer as Folk where there wasn't really a gen aspect to the show, so...), there are more archives out there (that I know of at least) for gen then there are for Ship (both het and slash). And sure I know of quite a few places that are about slash, but I've come across just as many places that are gen only, and I'm not even into gen... And I'm sure this is mostly because I'm a slasher so notice things differently, but I've come across more places that say they're open to everyone, but have been hostile to slashers that I have the opposite.
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I'll admit, that I don't read het all that often. Probably because, since I'm not in the het parts of fandom, I don't have the know-how of how to find the good stuff, so end up just reading whatever I can come across, which can lead to some really bad stuff.
I think that may be why some slash writers say that. Because if you just go to the local fandom archive and start looking up het, (or slash, or gen) then you're not necessarily getting the "good" ones. Also, I've got to admit, 90% of the time an original character is introduced as a love interest (regardless of whether or not it's het or slash) it comes off as a Mary Sue/Gary Stu.
As someone who writes gen, I admit that I was initially quite taken aback when I got feedback that referred to a romance in a short that, as far as I was concerned, was pure comedy. I went back and I looked and looked and looked again at the piece to see where I’d put the romance in, but ultimately could see none. In the end I decided that the reviewer had their romance goggles on so tightly that it coloured everything they saw.
One of the posts I read about people talking about this is that most slashers, when they watch the show, they see the characters as slashy. In Stargate Atlantis (my fandom) John and Rodney (my pairing) spend a lot of time snarking, and teasing each other. They'll give each other playful slaps, and toss disses at each other all the time. That's canon. But those are things that most slashers in my fandom/pairing find slashy. But they're canon, so if someone where to write a fic, where John and Rodney are out walking 5 miles on a mission where they're teasing and laughing at each other, *they* would probably call it gen. They boys aren't making sexual jokes, or talking about their hot and heavy night in bed last night, but they are showing an intimacy in their interactions that so many of us find slashy. So while you the gen writer don't see any romance between them, if you're writing them in character, a slasher is going to find it slashy, just as they'd find the show slashy.
My problem is, though, that so much of fandom is devoted to romance, and to slash in particular, that I don’t feel like I should have to roll out the welcome wagon to make it safe by effectively lying about my motives behind writing a piece. It's insulting, both to me and to you.
And, of course, I would never say you had to. Just that I don't think it's an insult to do so. Like I said, if you're writing something in character to how we see them on the show, a slasher is going to find it slashy. And I don't necessarily see it as lying about your motives, just saying that you're not going to be angry if someone doesn't see things the way you do (I wrote this as gen, but some might see it as pre-slash). If that bothers you, then you definitely shouldn't say that it's preslash.
Besides, who’s out there making the world safe and welcoming for genfic authors and readers? There are whole archives out there that don’t even have a gen category.
Umm, actually, in my current fandom (my only other big fandom was Queer as Folk where there wasn't really a gen aspect to the show, so...), there are more archives out there (that I know of at least) for gen then there are for Ship (both het and slash). And sure I know of quite a few places that are about slash, but I've come across just as many places that are gen only, and I'm not even into gen...
And I'm sure this is mostly because I'm a slasher so notice things differently, but I've come across more places that say they're open to everyone, but have been hostile to slashers that I have the opposite.