Fan fiction is a little bit like a dessert to the main menu: while the authors of the shows and movies we love have to stick to a time-limit and, more often than not, the character's descriptions and their backgrounds are neglected because there is no time for a more in-depth approach, fan fic authors can create a whole universe of their own. Maybe the TV-authors bring the characters to life, but the fan fic authors give them a life.
So if you have fun with fan fiction, enjoy it, whether it be gen, het or slash. This here is just my personal point of view, and I do not claim it to be the only one valid.
There is an awful lot of fan fiction out there, and an awful lot of it is awful. The quality of the stories vary from fandom to fandom - which is, so I assume, mainly due to the age of the fans. I guess I'm not the only one who cringes when reading disclaimers like "story contains rape, incest, graphic violence and torture, LOL, hope u like it, I wrote it in between mathematic and PE".
Now don't get me wrong - I don't mind at all people writing blushing romances or rough tough sex scenes - but even the most colourful nom de plume and the use of well-liked characters don't make literature out of badly written porn. Not even good entertainment. And there IS a lot of badly written porn. Whether I read it or not, though, is my own choice.
Het stories with sexual content tend to make me feel uncomfortable because I feel like an intruder on somebody's privacy - either the described character's, or the author's. At the end of the day what I read in a story is the product of one person's fantasy - and do I really want to know? Naw. Not. Really.
With sexual content in slash - and that's what I was supposed to write about here - my main problem is that the concept of "insert tab A into slot B" does ab-so-lu-te-ly nothing for my libido. I'm not aroused. No flushed cheeks. No sweaty hands. No horny thoughts. I think "ouch!" and hit the "back" button.
I can also not follow the sometimes over-feminized characterization of characters. Daniel Jackson, for example, looks very male to me, and pretty compact. Reading about "lithe, frail bodies" and stories where Jack has to carry the poor thing out of dangerous situations on his strong arms do at times make me wonder if, just maybe, Daniel has become mary-sued by the author, as a proxy for herself. Which leads me back to het stories: I feel like a voyeur.
There is a handful of slash-authors I do read, though, because their writing is so outstanding that I can live with the sex scenes. Anais' "Dr. Jackson's Diary", for example, which is just too hilarious to ignore. Or Keiko Kirin's "Steak"-series, where you will find a character description which is a hundred percent believable.
Within the Lord of the Rings fandom, Magic Rat's "Rabbit Tales" come to my mind, or the most wonderful amusing writings of Lord Anand and his frolicking elves.
Like good writing can hook me on a TV show or a movie, good writing can hook me on a slash story.
What really ruffles my feathers is the perception of some that those who do not enjoy slash stories are automatically homophobic. Well, I am not. I would love to have a TV show where a homosexual couple is featured - because it's a normal thing, and we should get used to it.
I just find much more fun and pleasure in having sex than in reading about it. |
