What's Your Opinion on Slash?

@ KatieMosing
I started writing slash in early high school and I didn't know anyone who was gay or not straight so I had to ask my mom how gay guys have sex. I mostly based it on other stories. I think if you read enough, you can pull it off.

But that is nothing different than any other story I've written where I needed to know something more. I don't really write het, but I approach them in the same way. They are, after all, the same thing pretty much. I just want to write about characters, what they think, their motives.

@ KatieMosing
Same as Captain Mars and Dru, pretty much. I mean, I research factual stuff for stories, but I've never set out to research slash/gay relationships. I had read a good bit of slash before I started writing it, and I have gay friends. I've never researched any type of romantic relationship, although I guess I should, having never been in one – but like, I have been in friend/family relationships, and I've inevitably been observing romantic relationships from the outside my whole life, plus consuming media that's pretty obsessed with the idea, so I feel okay patching together what a romantic relationship looks like from the inside. (It's a challenge, but that's what makes it fun/interesting.) At any rate, I figure I'm no worse at writing slash than I am at het, having experienced neither.

@ battalions
Okay so, I just discovered that you wrote John Nolan/ Jesse Lacey slash and I am going to cry tears of joy and read it. That being said, now that I think about it, I have actually stalked marriage forums, as weird as that sounds, so I can get ideas of things that can happen in real relationships because, I haven't been in very many myself. I've never actually researched if gay relationships are any different than straight relationships, though.

I have a few gay friends, and, for the most part, their relationship are pretty similar to straight relationships. The only differences I have noticed is the way they find potential partners. It's a lot of online and meeting through other people instead of at bars and such.

@ KatieMosing
That's a straight thing? I've met almost every guy I've dated/slept with online. I've never met anyone any a bar 'or such'. Granted, I'm not straight, but those were heterosexual tryst/relationships.

^I think it varies from place to place – I don't think I know anyone IRL who met their SO online, gay, straight, or otherwise, but I live in a pretty densely populated area. (And you don't need to worry as much about how your characters met when you're pairing band dudes. )

I think overall there probably are some statistical differences is gay vs. straight relationships, but I think those difference are caused by the pressures of having a same-sex relationship in a heteronormative culture, not by any inherent difference in the nature of the people involved/the relationship. And I always figure with whatever I'm writing about, my characters (or my interpretation of characters) are the way I say they are, even if that makes them an exception to a rule.

@ battalions
I live in a city with a lot of people, but it's just easier for me to meet people online. And I agree with your statement that homosexual individuals may go about different ways owing to society, not how they would like to do things. It can be pretty risky to try to meet someone at a 'non-gay' bar because that guy could punch you in the face or kill you. Definitely factors a homosexual individual needs to take into consideration more than a heterosexual person. Disgusting and sad, but unfortunately true.

I'm okay with slash. I don't mind reading it. It would be odd if I fully disliked it or anything, because I'm not straight, but most relationships I've had have been with a girl. I prefer to read heterosexual stories, but sometimes I love to read slash/femmeslash. Bad at writing it, though, oddly enough.

I live in a fairly large city and within my city they have a little community. My best friend is gay and he says that some people will just randomly message him on Facebook out of the blue. Maybe because I'm younger I don't have many friends who online date, especially in the college/high school scene.

I personally find it difficult to read anything but slash these days. I find, usually, it's a lot more interesting, and original. I don't actually like how much fanfiction is always around though.

Don't get me wrong- it's not like I haven't written any in my time, and I like to read the occasional fanfic- who doesn't? But something I love a lot about reading in the first place is characters. In fanfiction I find things can get repeated a lot. If they write an awesome, original spin in a character, they waheeey.

Y'know what I mean?
xD

@ A Little Lost
I do, but in my last fandom I wrote about people who were pretty gay, so it wasn't really an original spin, just my interpretation of their sexual orientation.

Definitely makes sense in most fandoms, though.

I like that Mary Sue's aren't quite as present in most slashes that I read, and I feel like I can identify more with the realistic characters, I think.
I also really like reading in boy's perspective, and that's a lot more common in slash. :3

@ hyrule.
Yeah. Those are both really good points. Sometimes people "oh-so-subtly" (and I use that term VERY loosely) pair themselves with a character or, they base their Mary Sue on what they wish they were. I don't know how to explain it but, you can always just tell when an author does it.

And, I've noticed in a lot of slash, authors give male characters issues that are usually only given to female characters like, eating disorders.

@ Captain Mars

I write het fanfiction that is also self-insertion, and I pair myself with one of the characters. I don't see what's so wrong about that, especially since I'm a lot more realistic as a character (because I am a real person with quirks, flaws, strengths, etc) than a lot of "original" characters.

--

I don't mind slash because I don't really see it as being any different from any other relationship, but it bothers me when people act like slash is so much more interesting and always better written than het when that's simply not true. There are a lot of examples of clichés and terrible writing in both, and while there are a lot of slash writers that I follow, there are also a lot of het writers that I follow as well.

I prefer het because though I like reading from a male's perspective, I also enjoy reading about female characters, and I think that overall, female characters get a pretty bad rep in online fic. I actually prefer femmeslash more than slash as well.

I also hate getting comments through comment swap along the lines of "i'm a slash writer, i don't like het, meh meh meh." I get that there are a lot of people that leave comments like that on slash, but I'm not one of those people, so I don't feel like I deserve getting those comments on my work just because I write het

@ i saw sparks
Oh you definitely don't deserve that! Despite preferring slash, if I get a het story on comment swap I would never go on like that!

About the self-insertion though, I kinda agree with @ Captain Mars here. I mean, the first book I finished writing, the main character was basically myself down to the T, and it's like you can tell in others' stories too, but I suppose in the end it's just down to how well you write with it. It's not like I abandon a story because it sounds like the author is writing themselves into it, it just depends on how they do this. I just feel that, far too often, the character sounds the same. I'm just as guilty, even in my slash.

@ hear dru's song.
Haha well fair enough! Your own interpretation is good too. But it's not like I don't always like them to be how they are! For example, if the fan-fiction was based on Sherlock then I'd like for him to be just as bone-headed as he is! It all depends on the character really.. I guess I'm kinda picky xD

@ i saw sparks and @A Little Lost
You have a good point. Basing a character on yourself, if it's well written, is a good way to keep from writing a Mary Sue. I was mostly referring to the people who say "My friends and I go to Hogwarts," or something along those lines, and then they go about making themselves the perfect scene queen that has a troubled past. And, I can't stand when people say "I never read het." and then they base their entire comment on their bias. I never really go out of my way to look for het because I prefer slash but, that doesn't mean I wouldn't give the story a chance. Some het stories are really great.

I used to write self-insertion out the ass. As long as it's not glamorized, I see no issue.

'I prefer het because though I like reading from a male's perspective, I also enjoy reading about female characters, and I think that overall, female characters get a pretty bad rep in online fic. I actually prefer femmeslash more than slash as well.'

@i saw sparks - Agreed. I don't like slash stories that much - not because I hate the relationship between guy/guy, but because most of the fics I've read about it just doesn't interest me. So even though I don't read it, I can appreciate that there are good authors who enjoy writing slash stories.

There's nothing wrong with having an opinion, but it kind of irks me when I hear people blatanly bashing het stories as though they think all het stories are not worth reading. (Same with slash, but slash stories seem to be really popular around here).

I've also noticed that girl characters do get a bad rep around here...

Awesome.

^Glad you think so.
That is if you're referring to my opinion, of course.