Hidden fanfic preferences laid bare...

[dangermousie]

So, I decided to come out of the closet. Fanfic reading closet, that is. And list my secret fanfic opinions/preferences, the ones I normally wouldn't. And I am curious what are yours? Share?

1. I don't like slash. I have nothing against a canon gay relationship being ficced but pairing two boys together just because two boys hotter than one is just as appallingly sexist as men with silly lesbian fantasies where the lesbians always look like college cherleaders. Blah. Taking a canonically straight character and writing them as gay just because he is hotter with a fellow boy than a woman? Yuck.

2. And yet I love Clark/Lex. I am a nasty hypocrite.

3. RPF/RPS, real people fic about anything, even if it's just them communing with trees? Makes me want to take a shower. I won't read it, I won't comment on it, I won't even skim it. That includes everything from the simplest authorial Mary Sue self-insertion to 'actors A and B are aliens fighting Martians in space' fic.

4. I don't mind incest fic, if it's either:
a. as messed-up as it should be
b. canon (I am a canon Nazi).

5. This said, if it's sibcest, OK. If it's parental figures, I don't care if it's messed up and/or canon. I will never ever read it.

6. Mpreg should die. So should gender swap fic. No, it's not OK for your character to suddenly wake up as a girl/boy.

7. Most humor fic is horrible. It's not funny or clever or anything. Just horrible.

8. The same is true for most cross-overs. Except for the few awesome ones.

9. I like Lord of the Rings Mary Sues. When they go for Gimli.

10. If I never read another Draco centric fanfic, it will be too soon.

11. If it's for a pairing/fandom there is little fic in, I will read anything, no matter how badly spelled.

12. Some fandoms there should never be any fic for, because the source material just won't be matched/won't work with fanfic. That includes Dorothy Dunnett, Shakespeare and Battle Royale.

13. Hatefics deserve hate. Any fic that is just about 'I hate character X so all canon characters do now too, all of a sudden?' Sucks.

14. I will never review if the story asks for reviews.

15. It takes a lot to make me flame (I'd rather not leave a comment at all), but I've done it. And didn't feel a bit sorry afterwards.

16. Deathfic. I just can't. No matter how good it is.

17. I used to read and like Highlander fic. h/c Highlander fic. Yes.

18. I don't get Buffy/Angelus fics. Not even S7 Buffy would be OK shacking up with a soulless murderous monster. And yes, DB is hot in leather pants but not enough to overlook that.

Any of your unpopular/hidden fic views?

Note: this doesn't mean I mind anyone else having different preferences etc. These are just my own.

Comments

[equustel.livejournal.com]

Re: slash - word.

[morwen_peredhil]

• Little-known fact: When I first started to read fanfic (LOTR), I read mostly slash because that was just about all I could find. Once I found LJ and the het I wanted all along, that was it for the far-less-satisfying slash.

• OMG, I thought it was just me! Slash for the sake of slash bores me, but I love Clark/Lex!

• Most incest squicks me. For some reason, though, the idea of Jon/Dany from ASOIAF works for me. Also, a bulletproof kink of mine is two brothers in love/sleeping with the same woman, separately or at the same time, but no matter what they can't actually have sex with each other.

• I just pretend RPS doesn't exist. Everyone is happier that way.

• Mpreg is about as low as non-RP fic can get. Even lower if it's furry mpreg.

[strippedpink.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Well, first of all I hope you know I respect you and your opinions very much, and I know you said you're not trying to come down on others for having different opinions, but this really strikes a chord with me and I can't NOT say something:

pairing two boys together just because two boys hotter than one is just as appallingly sexist as men with silly lesbian fantasies where the lesbians always look like college cherleaders. Blah. Taking a canonically straight character and writing them as gay just because he is hotter with a fellow boy than a woman? Yuck.

I dunno. I mean, I know I for one write fic only when the pairing calls to me - slash or not. It's not about who's hot and who's not, you know? For some people, sure it is, but labeling an entire genre as "appallingly sexist" kind of seems a bit unfair.

Then again, you are completely entitled to your own opinion, so there it is.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't necessarily think all slash is the equivalent of those 19th century lesbian paintings I've seen (don't ask) but I do find that tendency in a lot of slashfic (to be fair, there is an equivalent trend in hetfic where the author is writing het characters getting it on for tittilation).

I love Clark/Lex so my attitude is far from consistent btw. No idea why C/L gets me, but it does.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Furry mpreg? There is such a thing? Oh God.

The only time I didn't mind mpreg was farscape with Rygel because, dammit, canon :D

What is ASOIAF?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[morwen_peredhil]

I don't know if there is actually furry mpreg, but NOTHING would surprise me at this point.

The A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin. Jon and Dany are very possibly nephew/aunt. They have never met each other.

[katranna.livejournal.com]

Ha, none of this is news.

as appallingly sexist as men with silly lesbian fantasies where the lesbians always look like college cherleaders.

I know you're not talking about all slash (as ha, you can be totally slashy yourself far more often that you admit here), but I just have to note... I know what you mean here, but it just makes me realize how far we've come. Just 5 years ago, the idea of women enjoying m/m slash was in itself so unheard of that even slash-just-for-the-pretty-men was revolutionary in terms of gender relations. Now slash has become taken for granted enough and accepted enough that we can worry about sexism within it. This is honestly pretty cool.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Ha, none of this is news.

LOL. But then I've known you for what? 24 years? I still remember you when we fruitlessly used to try lock aliterati away because she wasn't cool enough to play with us at almighty 4 and 8 or whatever.

you can be totally slashy yourself far more often that you admit here

I did admit my Clark/Lex fetish here after all (blame aliterati and her corrupting influence). But yeah, it's interesting about slash being so recently mainstream. I wonder if RPF is next?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Just a thank you for the first one...I have NEVER understood that. I mean, canon gay...fine...not canon, why waste your time?

Ever look around the anime/manga fandoms? In most(that I've seen), fangirls will insist until they're blue in the face that 2 straight characters are the perfect pairing. They also hate most anime females because they're a love interest for a character they want to slash with someone else and they see them as an OTP interferer. BTW, this is where a LOT of the hate for Miaka in FY comes from.

I'm so happy that's mostly absent from the dorama fandom(at least, aside from a few Shuji/Akira NWP bits-which, while not canon and both guys are straight, I can at least see where the idea would spring from, certainly much more so than 99.9999% of other slash pairings-I haven't encountered)

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

1. boyslash, agreed. Girlslash.... when there's as much girls as boys, then I'll agree. (If I hear OMG we are subverting the patriarchy crap one more time... 'cause, guess what, supporting female characters does far more good than making random men have sex.)
3. I would like to say I can be counted on to never write RPF, and then I'm reminded that I've written the Python boys and Douglas Adams into numerous Subreality bits.
6. Maybe someone will write me Kara/Anders genderswap. Until then...
7. *makes note*
8. Also guilty.
9. Mine went for Gandalf, she should totally count. ;]
11. Woe.
14. How I wish that everyone else followed this, instead of showering ten thousand words of praise on them.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, anime fandoms are the worst for this. In fact, point number one was brough up by looking for Ceres fic and finding oodles of Yuhi/Toya fics which just...Dear God.

HUH?

Forget canon straightness of both. Forget the fact that they are both in love with Aya (hell, for Toya it's literally his reason for being). But bwaaaaah? Why? What in their interaction (the little they have) would lead there, except, hey they are both hot.

And agree on Miaka hate reasons. A silly reason to hate a character but there it is.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Agreed on girlslash. I think it's quite telling there isn't much there. I don't have interest in most of it, but I don't have an ick reaction to it.

Maybe someone will write me Kara/Anders genderswap.

Hey, she totally wears the pants already :D

9. Mine went for Gandalf, she should totally count. ;]

LOL. Indeed.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

*shudder*

Yeah. Some of my favorite anime characters are despised just for being a love interest. Toya exists to protect Aya, period. I could see where they'd draw up Toya/Aki from(I mean, they'd be WRONG, but there's the protection/dependence thing...it's just more like a helpless puppy with mean owners and the nice neighbor who pets the puppy and gives it nice treats...or something...not that I think of Aki as a puppy...) but Toya/Yuhi is one of the ones I can't begin to fathom.

The Miaka hate is among the worst, probably because she was one of the first ones to havbe a bevy of cuties around her. I mean, she annoys me at times, but in the "take a downer and eat a loaf of bread so you won't always be hungry" way and I still LIKE her, but there are people who wish she'd just die. Kagome and Kikyo in Inu Yasha get a lot of it(thankfully, they leave Sango alone for the most part and Sango/Miroku is MY OTP in the series) and Winry in Full Metal Alchemist and then Megumi and Kaoru in Rurouni Kenshin get a lot, too(Aoshi's girl---how could I POSSIBLY just forget her name...she's one of my favorites, I'm horrible...seems to largely escape it)

It's like...if they hated Miaka for being loud or always needing rescuing(and similar reasons for the other females) I'd understand(disagree, but understand) but it's not because of the characters...they hate them for daring to be a lead female character.

[ayn-rand-fan-13.livejournal.com]

I don't have to tell you how I feel about slash.
I totally agree about RPF/RPS fics.
My new favorite thing in fanfic is crossover fic. It's like one fandom just isn't enough for me, I have to be reading two at a time.
I think just thinking about badfic is messing up my spelling, because I just almost wrote "to" as "two".

ETA

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

while on the subject of OTPs and anime/manga, did you watch the anime OTP MV yet? The thing is like a canon shipper's dream(Goku/Sanzo aside)

[ancarett]

I find m/m stories boring for the most part. Even canon ones! (I have made exceptions for Remus/Sirius stories in HP fandom, but that's about it.) However, I am often a fool for femslash.

I have one favourite Draco-centric story which I re-read every now and then: The More is My Unrest by Arabella & Jedi Boadicea over at Sugarquill

I generally don't read WIP, especially long, multi-chaptered sprawling epics. Which is why I'm writing and sporadically posting just such a story right now, I guess.

I hate second-generation stories.

And TV characters getting sucked into a TV or movie world, having to work through the plots of the author's favourites shows or films? Augh!!!

My second grade teacher said "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" and that's usually what I do with fic that I don't like. Having once made one snarky aside in a public journal about some fic I didn't like and having been slammed across the internet for the same, I guess that's still probably the best advice. But I don't regret the snark one little bit.

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

Anti-slash gang sinez!

[tassosss.livejournal.com]

1. I have two slash pairings: McKay/Sheppard and Jim/Blair. These are the only two that I can legitimately see if you squint at the canon (Though I never could stomach much TS canon so...) Everything else pretty much makes me cringe.

2. I ship most canon het pairings but anything outside that that doesn't have a long enough buildup to convince me makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

3. RPS doesn't exist in my little world. The one or two that I've clicked on (by authors I trust) I spent reading completely embarrassed.

4. Incest in any way shape or form makes me want to curl up and hurl. Just no. Never.

5. Genderswapping and mpreg I will read if I trust the author, and I've liked those.

Really if the author handles it well I'll give it a try. At the first sign of poor execution I hit the back button. I agree with you on humor fic and crossovers. I don't read Mary-Sue fic and if the author asks for reviews then I won't even read it. To me that's a sign of a bad writer.

[callmecaito.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with a lot of your dislikes, but at the same time you're tempting me to write exactly what you hate. It's like I'm really inherently obnoxious or something.

[summertea.livejournal.com]

but pairing two boys together just because two boys hotter than one is just as appallingly sexist as men with silly lesbian fantasies where the lesbians always look like college cherleaders

Er... that's sort of oversimplifying why people write slash. Some of us actually LIKE the characters and feel they play off of each other well or whatever. *stoic face*

[aliterati.livejournal.com]

You were so mean! ;p

And, oh yeah: bwaha.

[janlake83.livejournal.com]

okay if your coming out of the fanfiction reading closet then i have something to confess myself, i don;t just read them, i also write them... i know shameful but i can't help it....

[calledinvain.livejournal.com]

I prefer femmeslash myself, but it's always an adventure to find real gems, and not just gratuitous PWP (though, there's something to be said for the simplicity of p0rn) or the overwrought, overly flowery purple georgia o keefe flower licking.

But slash for the sake of slash does irk me a little bit, which is why I always sail on the good ship Gen at all times.

I have some RPF tendencies, but only in small small doses. *cough*

[kitsune714.livejournal.com]

Ooh. This is hard for me, because I've been in so many fandoms and have been reading and writing fic for so long that it's hard to figure out what my "do"s and "do not"s are. I have a fairly open mind when it comes to reading fanfiction, but I will say that there was a time in my life when I avoided RPF like the plague. I am mostly okay with it now (even RPS, but that's JE related, and a whole other beast entirely), because I kind of compartmentalize it into fiction rather than fact, and because there are some really excellent writers out there who dabble in this medium, and...yes, my logic sounds very weird in my head, but you know where I'm going. I stay away from "hatefic". It is very stupid. I just don't go there--it'd make my brain bleed. I try to avoid Fanfiction.net most of the time (it's the Pit of Voles for a reason), but I will say that I've uncovered a gem or two while sifting through all the offerings.


11. If it's for a pairing/fandom there is little fic in, I will read anything, no matter how badly spelled.

I admit to this. And then when I got frustrated with what I did find, I'd just start writing my own.

When it comes to writing, I'm a canon Nazi myself, you know this, but I have no qualms about sticking canon characters in a canon relationship in a totally AU situation...so long as they're still the same characters, the same people. That said, I am not above crack!fic, wherein all rules are out the window (except for my always, always, always present rules of writing -- coherence, grammar, and for god's sake, no idiocy!).

Sap kills me. I struggle with writing romance or fluff that isn't too OTT or unrealistic. I just can't do it, because I write what I know, what I can visualize, what I see. I could never write a "Miaka falls into mortal danger and now Tamahome must go save her and Miaka's DYING AND OMG" fic, because I wouldn't trust myself with it.

7. Most humor fic is horrible. It's not funny or clever or anything. Just horrible.

I struggle with writing humor fic. I think it's harder to make someone laugh than it is to make someone cry, mostly because humor is a delicate and personal thing.

4. I don't mind incest fic,

Score one for Asian media! Welcome to the dark side, my dear, we're happy to have you.